3 Mithqual - Guangxu Urumchi, normal San

Urumchi mint output from the Guangxu period is notoriously inconsistent, and the 3 mithqual denomination reflects the hybrid monetary logic of late Qing Xinjiang — a province where local weight standards derived from Central Asian trade practice rather than the tael system governing the rest of China. The mithqual, rooted in the Islamic misqal unit, persisted here precisely because Xinjiang's commerce ran west toward Kokand and Russian Turkestan as much as it ran east toward Beijing.

The "normal San" designation distinguishes this from variants with differing calligraphic rendering of the denomination character — a subtle but catalogued distinction that matters for completeness in a type set.