50 Cash 'Lanchow copper', cast

Kansu's 1920 fifty-cash pieces were cast rather than struck at a moment when the province had neither the machinery nor the political stability to operate a modern mint press. The "Lanchow copper" designation distinguishes this issue from contemporaneous Kansu struck coinage and reflects the foundry tradition that persisted in the northwest long after the rest of Republican China had abandoned it. Cast brass coinage of this denomination was effectively obsolete by this date nationally, making Kansu an outlier driven by isolation and infrastructural poverty rather than policy.