Location: 5th & 6th Floor of the library, Guangdong University of Finance, No. 527 Yingfu Road, Longdong, Tianhe District, Guangzhou (广州市天河区龙洞迎福路527号广东金融学院图书馆5、6楼)
Sightseeing Theme: Creative Culture / History&Heritage / Science&Education
Opening Hours: 8:00 – 11:30 am, 2:00 – 4:30 pm, Monday – Friday (closed during summer and winter vacations)
Admission: Free only for team reservation; individual tourist should only come on free open day every month (May 18 is open for free)
Key Words: Parent-Child Fun,Places of Interest,Science and Education,Museums
About: Guangzhou Monetary and Finance Museum is kind of low profile. It is situated in Guangdong University of Finance. As one of the rare currency museums in Guangdong, it houses more than 50,000 pieces of monetary and finance objects. It is your first choice to explore the wonderful world of currency. In the museum, you can see ancient Chinese coinage, currency of the Republic of China, currency of the revolutionary base, Chinese currency, currency of China’s Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, currency of countries around the world, gold and silver commemorative coin, electronic currency, finance tickets, and so on. There is also shell money, knife money, three hole spade (san kong bu), copper coin, bank notes, shoe-shaped gold ingot, paper money and so on. In the exhibition area of ancient currency, you can never miss this one: knife coin in the shape of a key (“一刀平五千”). It was issued by Wang Mang, a Han Dynasty official who seized the throne from the Liu family, founded the Xin Dynasty and ruled during 9–23 AD. Only a minimal number of such coins had been issued into circulation, so it is highly sought-after by collectors nowadays. A knife coin is divided into two parts: knife blade and knife handle. Because the lettering is filled with gold, so it is also called “gold-inlaid knife” (“金错刀”). In the exhibition area of foreign currency, banknote of Zimbabwe attracts the most attention. Everybody knows that the largest denomination of renminbi is the 100 yuan note. However, the largest denomination in the world is the 100 000 000 000 000 banknote of Zimbabwean dollar. That’s right, 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. According to the commentator, the banknote looks intimidating, but considering the inflation, this banknote of tremendous denomination can only offer one or two loaves of bread. In the exhibition hall of anti-counterfeit currency, all sorts of strange counterfeit banknotes are displayed. If you don’t identify carefully, you might not be able to recognize them. For the 100-yuan banknote of the 2005 series, several key points for how to detect a counterfeit note are listed in the exhibition hall.
Transportation:Take Guangzhou metro Line 6 and get off at Longdong Station (龙洞站), then walk about 2 kilometers to get to the university.
