5 Fen - Guangxu Pattern

Chekiang (Zhejiang) was among the provincial mints experimenting with small silver subsidiary coinage in the early 1900s, attempting to rationalize a currency system badly fragmented by regional tael standards and foreign trade dollars. This piece is a pattern — it never entered circulation — and the Kann reference places it firmly in the exploratory issues that preceded any formal provincial coinage authorization. The Beijing central government's resistance to provincial silver standardization meant most such patterns died exactly here: as struck specimens in a drawer.