Vietnamese cash

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The Vietnamese cash (chữ Hán: 文錢 văn tiền; chữ Nôm: 銅錢 đồng tiền; French: sapèque), also called the sapek or sapèque, is a cast round coin with a square hole that was an official currency of Vietnam from the Đinh dynasty in 970 until the Nguyễn dynasty in 1945, and remained in circulation in North Vietnam until 1948. The same type of currency circulated in China, Japan, Korea, and Ryūkyū for centuries. Though the majority of Vietnamese cash coins throughout history were copper coins, lead, iron (from 1528) and zinc (from 1740) coins also circulated alongside them often at fluctuating rates (with 1 copper cash being worth 10 zinc cash in 1882). Coins made from metals of lower intrinsic value were introduced because of various superstitions involving Vietnamese people burying cash coins, as the problem of people burying cash coins became too much for the government. Almost all coins issued by government mints tended to be buried mere months after they had entered circulation. The Vietnamese government began issuing coins made from an alloy of zinc, lead, and tin. As these cash coins tended to be very fragile, they would decompose faster if buried, which caused the Vietnamese people to stop burying their coins. The inscriptions of Vietnamese cash coins can be written in either the Viết chéo (曰湥 / 曰袑, top-bottom-right-left) style or the Viết thuận (曰順, clockwise, top-right-bottom-left) style.