The Currencies Of China. An Investigation Of Gold & Silver Transactions Affecting China. With A Section On Copper. Kann, Eduard.

First edition, first printing, with the rare jacket, of this classic work by the leading authority on the subject. A coin collector, Kann also wrote the Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Coins (1953). His enormous collection - "the finest known" (Kreisberg, p. v) - was sold at auction in 1971 and 1972, and some of his silver ingots are now found in the British Museum. Kann (1880-1962) was born in Austria but left Vienna in 1902 to work in the banking sector in China. After several decades working for different financial institutions including the Russo-Asiatic Bank and the Commercial Guarantee Bank of Chihli, he became a private bullion broker and an advisor to Chiang Kai-Shek's administration. In 1933, he served on the advisory committee for the formation of the Shanghai mint and, after a period of internment by the Japanese during the Second World War, he remained in Shanghai until the communist advance on the city in 1949. Kann's equally impressive collection of Chinese banknotes was sold by New York's Bowers & Merena in 2008. Abner Kreisberg, Eduard Kann Collection Auction Catalogue, 1971. Octavo. Original blue moiré-pattern cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, front board with gilt device. With dust jacket. Colour frontispiece, 5 plates, folding table. Title page partly printed in gilt. Contemporary ownership signature of "Hildibrand" on half-title. Spine and head of boards sunned, head of spine beginning to fray, contents lightly toned but clean; jacket with a few losses, flaps without price as issued, old adhesive tape repair on verso, more recent expert Japanese tissue repairs: a very good copy in like jacket.