Great Qing Copper Coin

The Great Qing Copper Coin^[1] (simplified Chinese: 大清铜币; traditional Chinese: 大清銅幣; pinyin: Dà Qīng Tóng Bì), also known as the Qing Dynasty Copper Coin or Da-Qing Tongbi, officially the Tai-Ching-Ti-Kuo Copper Coin, refers to a series of copper machine-struck coins from the Qing dynasty produced from 1906 (31st year of Guangxu) until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. These coins were intended to replace the earlier cast cash coins and provincial coinages, but were welcomed to mixed receptions.

Two series of Tongyuan (銅元) were simultaneously in circulation, one carried the inscription Guangxu Yuanbao (光緒元寶), which was also used for silver coins, and the other with the inscription "Great Qing Copper Coin". While the Guangxu Yuanbao were often provincially issued and at first were of different weights, the Great Qing Copper Coin was introduced by the imperial government in the hope of creating a unified national currency system.