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A boat-shaped sycee

The tael is the name used in English to refer to various weight measures of the Far East. Most commonly, it refers to the Chinese tael (Chinese: 兩, liǎng in Mandarin, leung in Cantonese^[1]; lượng in Vietnamese), a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency . There were many different weighting standards of tael depending on the region or type of trade. In general the silver tael weighed around 40 grams. The most common government measure was the Kùpíng (庫平 "treasury") tael, weighing 1.2 Troy ounces (37.3 g). A common commercial weight, the Cáopíng (漕平) tael weighed 1.18 Troy ounces (36.7 g) of marginally less pure silver.

Silver currency as ingots were called "sycee". The name came from the Cantonese words meaning "fine silk"^[2] (presumably, Chinese: 细丝, xìsī in Mandarin). In North China, the word yuanbao (simplified Chinese: 元宝; pinyin: yuánbǎo), rendered by 19th-century English writers as yamboo or yambu, was also used for similar ingots.

Sycees were not denominated or made by a central mint and their value was determined by their weight in taels. They were made by individual silversmiths for local exchange, and as such the shape and amount of extra detail on each ingot were highly variable; square and oval shapes were common but "boat", flower, tortoise and others are known. The local tael also took precedence over any central measure, so the Canton tael weighed 37.5g, the Convention or Shanghai tael was 33.9 g (1.09 oz troy), and the Customs or Hǎiguān (海關) tael 37.8 g (defined as 1¹⁄₃ oz avoirdupois, about 1.22 oz troy). The conversion rates between various common tael were well known.

Sycee were first used as a medium for exchange as early as the Qin Dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty, a standard bi-metallic system of silver and copper coinage was codified with 10 silver coins equal to 1,000 copper cash coins. Paper money and bonds were introduced in the 9th century. However, due to monetary problems such as inflation, and political uncertainty with changing regimes, metal coins remained the currency of choice. The tael was still the basis of the silver currency and sycee remained in use until the end of the Qing Dynasty. Common weights were 50 tael, 10 tael, and 5 down to 1.

The word is still in use. In Mainland China, it is equivalent to 50 g since the country has gone metric (see Chinese unit for details). In Taiwan and Hong Kong it is equivalent to 10 mace (qián 錢) or ¹⁄₁₆ catty^[1], albeit with slightly different equivalent in metric in these two places. The Chinese units of measurement are usually used in the Chinese herbal medicine stores as well as gold and silver exchange. In Shanghai silver is still traded in tael.

In Hong Kong, one tael is 37.79936375 g^[1], and in ordinance 22 of 1884 is 1+¹⁄₃ oz. avoir.

The phrase "half a catty is 8 tael" ("半斤八兩"), meaning two different presentations of the same thing, similar to the English phrase "Six of one and half-a-dozen the other" is still often said today. The saying is also the title of a well-known Hong Kong pop song by Samuel Hui during the 1970s.

The word tael comes from the Malay word tahil, meaning "weight".

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Yuanbao

• World Gold Council description of tael bars