1 Fen

Issued in the final months before the People's Republic displaced the Republic of China government, this bronze fen belongs to a currency already collapsing under hyperinflation of historic proportions. By 1948, the gold yuan reform had been introduced precisely because the fabi — the existing currency system — had lost all practical value. Coins like this one were struck while the Nationalist government's monetary authority was disintegrating in real time, making the Central Mint's continued production something closer to institutional reflex than economic policy.