China, government paper money, 1 Kuan (1368-1399), 'Ming Dynasty', 1 Kuan = 1,000 Kaesch coins, Hung-Wu era = Era of the Great War, size 225 x 340 mm: Obverse: in the centre, ten strings of Kaesch coins corresponding to the face value. PMG 30 Very Fine, edge damage. One of the oldest banknotes in the world found in collections. The Chinese were already familiar with an early form of paper money during the Tang Dynasty (618-906) and subsequently during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), which was called 'flying money' due to its light weight. However, as early as the 10th century, the Chinese had a well-established system of banknote circulation involving transferable notes (so-called 'Koa-tse' = means of circulation), which suffered from inflation caused by the constant increase in the amount of money in circulation. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), attempts were initially made to restore stable monetary conditions by issuing copper coins. When this attempt failed, the state began issuing new paper money again, but the new notes, too, steadily lost value until they eventually became worthless. The Jesuit priest Du Halde wrote of these notes in his book on China, published in 1735: "They were hung from the main beams of the house to be displayed, but also served as talismans to ward off misfortune". The majority of Ming Dynasty notes found in collections originate from a hoard discovered by European soldiers in the base of a Buddha statue when they stormed the Emperor's Summer Palace in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901. After many failed attempts to introduce it, paper money remained unpopular in China. It was not until the mid-19th century, during the Taiping Rebellion, that experiments with paper money were conducted on a larger scale once again.