5 Cash - Xuantong

Xuantong was the reign name of Puyi, who ascended the throne at age two in late 1908 following the death of the Guangxu Emperor. This 5 cash piece belongs to the final years of imperial coinage reform, a period when the Qing court was attempting to rationalize a chaotic multi-mint system that had produced wildly inconsistent copper cash for decades. The Board of Revenue mint in Beijing and provincial facilities struck overlapping issues with little coordination, and Y#19 types circulated alongside older cast cash and provincial machine-struck coins of dubious weight standards.

Puyi would abdicate in February 1912, making the entire Xuantong coinage sequence among the shortest reign issues of the late imperial period.