Silver is a mineral. The silver that circulated in ancient times was cast (melted at high temperature and put into a container to shape) into ingots and made into silver ingots for circulation.
China has no uniform strict regulations on the casting and issuance of silver ingots in the past dynasties, allowing free casting. As long as it adapts to the circulation environment and folk customs at that time, there are no regulations on the shape of silver ingots on the premise of ensuring quality. Especially since the Qing Dynasty, various provinces and regions have their own strengths and weaknesses, but they have the same purpose. But they can generally be divided into several categories such as ingot-shaped, round, rectangular, square, weight-shaped, and arch-shaped.
Extended information:
Ancient silver trading:
In ancient times, for the convenience of carrying, people would cut a large ingot of silver into small pieces Small pieces are for carrying and convenience during transactions. This is what people usually call broken silver. Except for wealthy families or government officials who use whole silver ingots, most ordinary people All used are broken silver.
Silver is very soft to the touch and can be easily cut off with scissors, then take out the stamp and count the portion that has been cut off. In fact, it is a very small scale, which is specially used to weigh gold, silver or medicine. The silver can be used after being weighed.
However, the fineness of the broken silver circulating in the market is not exactly the same, so merchants have to convert the fineness to calculate. However, if you meet some powerful merchants, some people can tell it almost based on experience. How many kilograms or taels does your broken silver cost? Of course, it’s usually taels. But most of them came to weigh the broken silver, which means that consumption of broken silver in ancient times was also calculated by weight.
Baidu Encyclopedia—Silver Ingot