[Ma Twan-lin mentions that in the fourth year of the period Yuen Show (B.C. 119), a currency of white metal and deer-skin was made.  Mr. Vissering (Chinese Currency, 38) observes that the skin-tallies “were purely tokens, and have had nothing in common with the leather-money, which was, during a long time, current in Russia.  This Russian skin-money had a truly representative character, as the parcels were used instead of the skins from which they were cut; the skins themselves being too bulky and heavy to be constantly carried backward and forward, only a little piece was cut off, to figure as a token of possession of the whole skin.  The ownership of the skin was proved when the piece fitted in the hole.”

Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, 201 note) says:  “As early as B.C. 118, we find the Chinese using ‘leather-money’ (p’i pi).  These were pieces of white deer-skin, a foot square, with a coloured border.  Each had a value of 40,000 cash. (Ma Twan-lin, Bk. 8, 5.)”

Mr. Charles F. Keary (Coins and Medals, by S. Lane Poole, 128) mentions that “in the reign of Elizabeth there was a very extensive issue of private tokens in lead, tin, latten, and leather.”—­H.  C.]

(Klapr. in Mem.  Rel. a l’Asie, I. 375 seqq.; Biot, in J.  As. ser.  III. tom. iv.; Marsden and Pauthier, in loco; Parkes, in J.  R. A. S. XIII. 179; Doolittle, 452 seqq.; Wylie, J. of Shanghai Lit. and Scient.  Soc. No.  I.; Arbeiten der kais. russ.  Gesandsch. zu Peking, I. p. 48; Rennie, Peking, etc., I. 296, 347; Birch, in. Num.  Chron. XII. 169; Information from Dr. Lockhart; Alcock, II. 86; D’Ohsson, IV. 53; Cowell, in J.  A. S. B. XXIX. 183 seqq.; Thomas, Coins of Patan Sovs. of Hind., (from Numism.  Chron. 1852), p. 139 seqq.; Kington’s Fred. II. II. 195; Amari, III. 816; W.  Vissering, On Chinese Currency, Leiden, 1877.)

["Without doubt the Mongols borrowed the bank-note system from the Kin.  Up to the present time there is in Si-ngan-fu a block kept, which was used for printing the bank-notes of the Kin Dynasty.  I have had the opportunity of seeing a print of those bank-notes, they were of the same size and shape as the bank-notes of the Ming.  A reproduction of the text of the Kin bank-notes is found in the Kin shi ts’ui pien.  This copy has the characters pao kilan (precious charter) and the years of reign Cheng Yew, 1213-1216.  The first essay of the Mongols to introduce bank-notes dates from the time of Ogodai Khan (1229-1242), but Chinese history only mentions the fact without giving details.  At that time silk in skeins was the only article of a determinate value in the trade and on the project of Ye lue ch’u ts’ai, minister of Ogodai, the taxes were also collected in silk delivered by weight.  It can therefore be assumed that the