Note that number in brackets in auction title is only my inventory number.

Buyer gets the exact coin shown in the photo.

WANG MANG (Hsin Dynasty) - 7 -22AD

Wang Mang was born into a wealthy and powerful Chinese family and was a government official. In 7AD he overthrew the Han Dynasty making himself emperor creating what he called the Hsin Dynasty. He set about redistributing land and wealth and set up a system similar to modern communism. Owning gold was illegal. He tried to get rid of slavery. His efforts set about extreme political and economic upheavels and 25 million people died during his reign (Half of China's population). Eventually the emperors of the Han dynasty built an army of displaced people (Not so hard to do given the extreme problems created by Wang Mang) and when the Han army finally killed him they hacked his body into small pieces and several dozen soldiers were then killed in a fight over bragging rights as to who actually killed him.

Wang Mang made a total of five coin reforms – creating in his decade and a half rule one of the most diverse variety of coins in China's history. There was major confusion and counterfeiting was rampant. In an effort to stamp out counterfeiting a law was passed that if anybody was caught counterfeiting coins his entire family and the family of his three nearest neighbors would get executed. The idea was that neighbors would have known what was going on – there is no evidence that this worked. Coins of his fifth reform circulated a couple decades into the second HAN era so he may have finally got a coin system that worked.