50 Cash - Wang Mang First reform, with crescent

Wang Mang's monetary reforms were among the most ambitious — and disastrous — currency interventions in Chinese history. After usurping the Han throne and founding the Xin dynasty, he imposed a series of coinage reforms beginning in 7 AD that tried to displace the established wuzhu system with an elaborate hierarchy of new denominations. This particular issue, denominated at 50 cash but weighing a fraction of what that value implied, triggered immediate hoarding of the older coinage and widespread counterfeiting.

The crescent variety listed under Hartill 9.1 is distinguished by a lunate mark whose precise function — mint identifier, die marker, or quality control punch — remains unresolved in the scholarship.