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Until recent decades, coin
issue in Hong Kong was sporadic. For much of its history as
a trading city, Hong Kong relied on a wide variety of coins
(whether legal tender or not) for its daily business:
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Chinese cash, silver taels, and - later on - Chinese
silver coins |
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British pounds, shillings and pence |
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Silver dollars from Spain and Mexico and other South
American countries |
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Indian Rupees and other coins, and British trade dollars
minted in India |
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US silver dollars and Japanese yen |
| Some
coins current in nineteenth-century Hong Kong |
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| Indian
rupee |
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| Spanish
silver dollar |
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| Mexican
dollar |
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| British
trade dollar |
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| Chinese
cash |
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 The first Hong Kong coins, minted at the Royal Mint in
England in silver and bronze, bear the year 1863 and appeared
in Hong Kong in 1864. For a brief period in the late 1860s,
coins were minted at the new Hong Kong Mint in Causeway
Bay. These coins were not well received. Production soon
ceased, and the Mint closed down in 1868, with a financial
loss of $440,000 to the government. |
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