This silver collar (Figure 1) weighs 1857 grams, is 14 cm long, has a end width of 9.2 cm and a height of 4 cm, and a waist width of 5.5 cm and a height of 3 cm. The front side of the engraving is engraved with words such as "Song Linhuang Picks Up Two Nine Money Yang Chun Xing Wang Ren Bo Carved Light Called Hua Silver Envoy Division", and the back side is cast "Pingyang", and the engraved inscription and casting stamp font are clearly recognizable. Due to the long edification of history, thick and thick pastes are leached; the bottom (Fig. 2) is covered with honeycombs of dense and natural size formed when minting silver.
Silver collar, commonly known as silver ingot, is silver cast into a fixed shape such as strips. Its heavy numbers vary from two to dozens of pairs. Ancient silver collar mainly appeared in the Tang, Song and Jin dynasties, because its shape resembles the kidney of a pig, the people called "pig loin silver". Common shapes are rounded girdle, flat-headed corset, and curved corset. Similar silver blocks after the Yuan and Ming Dynasties are called silver ingots and yuanbao.
Silver collar inscription refers to the text engraved or cast on the silver ingot at the time of casting, and the content has not been the same throughout the ages, including the time, place, use, color, official or craftsman name of the silver ingot minting. The inscription was written at that time to ensure the quality of the silver ingots, and the method of signing the pledge was used to indicate responsibility for the silver ingots handled. Literature records that inscriptions can be roughly divided into three categories: one is the silver ingot related to endowment, taxation, solution, and tribute belongs to the official ingot category, regardless of whether these silver ingots are cast by the official furnace (at that time, the official silver was entrusted to the silver building and the silver furnace minting), it is all official ingots; the second type of inscription is the silver ingot such as the silver building, the furnace household, the company, the bank Jiyu, etc., which belongs to the commercial silver category; the third type is the silver ingot cast in the name of the individual as private silver.
And this silver collar is engraved with the words "Envoy". Liu Pujiang proposed in the "Jin Dynasty" Envoy Division": The common "Envoy Division" stamp on the Golden Dynasty Silver Collar has different interpretations in academic circles, or "Envoy Division" is a test stamp, and the nature of such silver collar is weighing currency; or the "Envoy Division" Silver Collar is the tax silver of the Transshipment Division or the Salt Division. The author believes that "envoy division" is the general name of other envoys and divisions other than the salt envoy division, and all such silver collars are "court affairs tax" and "court affairs courses", and their nature belongs to the collection of taxes and silver.
According to another report, "Lizhuang Tibetan Chinese Silver Ingots" page 4 figure 004 - Jin Dynasty fifty-two silver collars, weight: 1958 grams, inscribed "Liu Zhongyuan wantonly picked up the two lines of liu zhongyuan Liu Baitong scale", stamped: "official □□", "official □□", "make □□" "envoy division", another smashed flower in many places, the Golden Dynasty fifty-two classic instrument type; the vast majority of the surviving gold dynasty silver collars, most of which are collected by public museums at all levels, rarely seen by the people; the collar inscription and smashing stamp are clearly recognizable, the pulp is light and thin, the honeycomb is dense and natural, and the bottom is embellished with silver beads. In addition to the partial scratches on the ingot surface, the quality is quite good. The inscription "Liu Zhongyuan", the name of the owner of the gold and silver shop, or the name of the craftsman. Both the "pedestrians" and the "scales" are gold and silver shoppers. The "pedestrian" is usually the leader of the Gold Bank association and is responsible for identifying and evaluating prices. The "scale" is the scale, the official servant, responsible for the weighing pan, the income and expenditure of the official property, as well as the identification of the color and weight of the silver collar. Silver collars, usually engraved with "pedestrians" and "scales", do not need to be inspected and weighed when handed over to the government or enter circulation. "Envoy Division", short for government agencies, the Jindai Transshipment Division, the Salt Envoy Division, and the Agricultural Envoy Division, the silver marked with this stamp is mostly related to taxation or commercial trade. The flower bet is the mark chiseled by the gold and silver shop, which is common in the gold generation silver collar, and has the meaning of identifying the identity.
Quanjie research has found that since the Tang Dynasty, silver collar, as an ancient circulating currency, has been stored by the state reserve, folk cellar, and even as a tribute and gift. Most of these silver hammers have inscriptions and markings. In the Song Dynasty, it gradually evolved into a special currency for national and local taxation, and the private sector held it as a kind of payment "voucher" for taxation. From this, a special Southern Song Dynasty "out tax" silver collar was derived.
This "Pingyang", known as Pingyang Road (Linfen City) during the Song and Jin Dynasties, governed some places in the Fenhe River Valley such as Linfen, Hongdong, Fushan, Huozhou, Fenxi, and Anze in Shanxi. According to the content of the inscription on this silver collar, we can imagine the scene at that time, during the Song and Jin Dynasties, when a person named Song Lin in the Linfen area of Shanxi Province paid what kind of tax with flower silver, the officially designated Yang Chun silver number was engraved by Wang Renbo, and he was assigned to designate the light to call the flower silver to pick up two nine coins. The light name here should be the meaning of the net weight of the present, and this tax is finally collected into the national treasury by collar. As for why it has flowed into the private sector, it needs to be further studied.