Hong Kong Coins

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Obverse of 1994 Hong Kong 10 Dollars

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Bauhinia Flower on Reverse of 1994 Hong Kong 10 Dollars

Pre-British Rule
Hong Kong was chiefly known for its pearl industry during Chinese rule, but later became a trading port. The notorious early 19th Century Chinese Pirate, Cheung Po Tsai used Hong Kong as a base until he was forced to submit to the Qing Dynasty, who made him an offer he couldn't refuse; serve as an officer in the Qing Navy, or die horribly. Not surprisingly, he chose the former!

British Takeover
Britain's rule over Hong Kong had very unseemly origins. Britain wanted to trade with China, but the Chinese merchants wanted silver in return for manufactured goods. However, the British found it very difficult to source enough silver to supply to Chinese merchants in order to fulfil the high demand for Chinese goods in Britain and the Empire. The only other outside good in demand in China was opium, a narcotic that the China's imperial authorities were not keen to allow their subjects to become addicted to.
The Chinese government attempted to ban the opium trade, but Britain, acting in a way not untypical of many drug dealers, used violence to get its own way, and launched a war, known as the First Opium War (1839-1842) in order to force the Chinese government to accept the opium trade. The sclerotic armed forces of Imperial China were no match for those of the ascendant British Empire, and China was forced to submit to the demands of the British. As part of the peace treaty, China was also forced to cede Hong Kong Island to Britain. The Second Opium War, fought for much the same reasons, resulted in the cession of Southern Kowloon in 1860.

British Rule during the 19th Century
Throughout the 19th Century, Hong Kong was developed into a major trading port and eventually became more important than Canton (China's then largest port). Britain introduced western-style education, governance and other institutions into Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong became heavily anglicised, constant immigration from China's nearby Cantonese community ensured that Cantonese remained the most commonly spoken language within the colony, although English became widely used as a second language.
In 1898, seeking further territory in Kowloon to make Hong Kong more defensible, a 99 year lease was signed for the so-called 'New Territories'. This lease, which was to expire in 1997, became the basis for the later handover of the entire colony in that year.

World War II
During World War II, Japan invaded and occupied Hong Kong after a battle lasting 18 days. The Japanese occupation was brutal, and ended up virtually destroying Hong Kong's economy, which was based primarily on trade, which was not surprisingly, heavily restricted due to the occupation. However, the economy recovered quickly after the war, and later, Hong Kong would become one of the world's leading cities and financial hubs.

John Cowperthwaite
John Cowperthwaite was a career civil servant in the Colonial Administrative Service who had first arrived in Hong Kong in 1941, before being pulled out soon afterwards and despatched to Sierra Leone. When he returned in 1945, he was tasked with finding ways of aiding the post-war recovery of the colony. However, he noticed that the economy was recovering very well on its own without government intervention, and later, as financial secretary of Hong Kong during the 1960s, he pursued a policy of what he called 'positive non-intervention', refusing even to collect statistics that might encourage the colonial government to med(dle. He kept personal taxes down to no more than 15 percent and reduced red tape and banned tariffs and subsidies.
His policies saw Hong Kong transform itself from a relative colonial backwater to a financial powerhouse that is today a city that rivals London and New York as hive of wealth and industry. Today, Cowperthwaite remains a hero to many in Hong Kong for the policies that allowed Hong Kong's economy to grow along with wages and standards of living for its people. Unfortunately, this lesson in the effectiveness of small-state governance and laissez-fair economics was largely lost on most politicians in his home country, which continued to decline throughout Cowperthwaite's tenure and afterwards.

Handover
After years of negotiations between Britain and the PRC, the Sino-British Joint Declaration was made in 1984. This declaration stated that when the 99 years lease on the New Territories expired in 1997, the entire colony of Hong Kong would be handed over to the PRC. In return, the PRC agreed to leave the capitalist system and way of life in Hong Kong intact for at least 50 years following the handover. Accordingly, in 1997, Hong Kong was officially handed over to China, and remains a special administrative area which is largely left to run itself. Nevertheless, between 1984 and 1997, more than 1 million Hong Kong residents fled the colony to avoid life under PRC sovereignty.

Coinage of Hong Kong
Prior to British colonial rule, cash coins of various Chinese dynasties were used in Hong Kong. Later, Hong Kong's importance as a trading port saw Indian rupees as well Spanish and Mexican dollars circulate as coins. An attempt to introduce sterling currency, based on an exchange rate of 4/2d failed. In 1863, the Royal Mint issued dollar and half-dollar coins styled after the Mexican peso and in 1866, a mint was established in Causeway Bay to strike them. However, the issue was a failure and the mint closed 2 years later.
By 1895 however, a shortage of silver coins had increased demand for silver dollars to the point that it was now viable to strike them again, and so in 1895, Britain struck the first British Trade Dollars, for use in Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements (Malaysia and Singapore). Once the Straits Settlements began striking their own dollars in 1904, the British Trade Dollar became an exclusively Hong Kong issue.
The British Trade dollar was last struck in 1935, the year that mainland China abandoned the silver standard. In that year, the 1 cent coin was discontinued, but the cupro-nickel 5 and 10 cent coins were introduced, later changed to nickel and then nickel-brass.
In 1960, cupro-nickel 1 dollar coins were introduced, which were reduced in size in 1978. In 1975, scallop-shaped nickel-brass 20 cents and cupro-nickel 50 cents coins were introduced, followed in 1976 by a decagonal 5 dollar piece. In 1994, a bimetallic 10 dollar piece was introduced.
From 1993, the portrait of Elizabeth II was phased out and replaced with the Bauhinia Blakeana flower and other symbols representing Hong Kong in preparation for the handover to China.
Today, coins of 10, 20 and 50 cents, as well as 1, 2, 5 and 10 dollars are issued for circulation in Hong Kong.

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