Page 13 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

the China Trade. Chinese Export Silver actually never exclusively did what it says on the
can. There is, however, Chinese silver that was made with the export market in mind just
as there was Chinese silver that found its way to the West through other circumstances.
The same silversmiths made all Chinese silver and the same centuries of inherited
expertise was applied to make it. But the phenomenon that gave birth to Chinese Export
Silver is far more complex than just its connection with the China Trade.

To state that Chinese Export Silver did not happen overnight is a good starting point.
China has always been the most populous country on earth and this presented its own
unique problems that other empires and nations did not have to face, namely creating a
viable economic system that could sustain and service such a large population. The result
is that China was the only nation to continually use silver as the foundation of its
economy, using silver ingots as a medium for exchange since the Han Dynasty and
only abandoning it as late as 1935 along with Hong Kong. The Chinese word for “bank” is
- literally meaning “silver house” - there lies the clue.

1865 Chinese booklet on the subject of authentication of Spanish Silver “Pillar” Trade Dollars

The amount of silver pouring into the Ming treasury was in the region of $190 billion
in today’s values. The Ming dynasty was responsible for over 30% of the entire
world’s GDP.

While China, under the Ming Dynasty, was virtually inundated with silver, we see a decline
in the amount of important silver objects being produced, but it was the Qing Dynasty that
brought the centuries of Chinese silver making to a new level of refinement and the
phenomenon we know today as Chinese Export Silver.

China’s centuries-old constancy in declaring its self-sufficiency, it seems at odds with its
dependency on vast supplies of silver from South America. Between 1780-1820, Mexico
was producing almost 80% of the world’s silver and the lion’s share of this was always