There are too many kinds of ancient coins. What people are familiar is Square-holed round coin. But before that period, we also have round-holed round coins. These coins are much older than Square-holed ones. Here is one of my collections — Yuan: This coin is about 40mm*1.5mm and 10g. It has one single character Yuan on the obverse. Yuan was its mint place, a city in the state of Liang. Yuan coin was minted at 4th century BC and is the most common of all round coins with round holes. But it’s still hard to get one at no less than $150.
And then you have this milled brass coin , also with a round hole. It was one of the last minted cash coins in China. It was made in the years 1906-1908, just before the Chinese modernized their coinage in 1911. It is only 16mm in diameter and weighs just 1.3 grams. The obverse reads Kuang-Hsu Tung-Pao, the reverse is written in Manchu style and reads Boo-Guwang. The Yuan and this coin represent two coins at the opposite ends of China's history with a shared similarity.
