Vietnamese văn (currency unit)

The Vietnamese văn (chữ Hán: 文; French: Sapèque) as a denomination for Vietnamese cash coins was used from 1868 until 1945 during the reign of the Nguyễn dynasty. The inspiration to introduce the văn may have been to emulate the Chinese wén used on contemporary Qing dynasty cash coins which had just become a fiat currency, however unlike the Chinese system where all Chinese cash coins were cast from the same metals and the wén was the primary unit of account for coins made of the same metals, the Vietnamese system used the văn as a basic number currency symbol indicating how much zinc cash coins (銅鐱, đồng kẽm) a brass or bronze cash coin (đồng điếu) was worth, the Vietnamese cash coins-based currency system used the mạch (陌) and quán (貫) as units of account that could be based on either zinc cash coins or copper-alloy cash coins depending on the region or context.

Source: Wikipedia — Vietnamese văn (currency unit) (CC BY-SA 4.0)