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Message:: [QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 5338359, member: 72790"]My daughter likes to buy me ancients for Christmas and birthdays. In her last purchase the dealer threw in this Chinese ancient. My daughter commented on how the Ancient Chinese had a very different approach to coinage than Greeks or Romans of the same time period and wanted to know more about this difference, like why the square hole in the center, no image of a ruler and what exactly the two images on the coin ( I may have it upside down) are. What came on a card with the coin is, bronze five Zhu (the denomination, I presume). On the obverse, Huo Quan. The reverse is "blank, as made". It is identified as the Xin Dynasty ( (Chin, I again presume) and the emperor as Wang Mang and the time period as 7-23 AD. Now that is a good deal so what I else would I want to know? First what are the two symbols ( Huo and Quan?), their literal translation, on the obverse and what do they mean? Second why the square hole in the center (good for stacking or tying together as in the equivalent of the sack or purse that in Rome we call a follis?). Third, why no image (iconoclastic religious objections as in Islamic or Byzantine coinage of a bit later)? Anything else you can tell me about this coin, Chinse coinage of the Chin or Han Dynasties much  appreciated.[ATTACH=full]1225919[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]