As a student of Chinese history and academic researcher in Chinese numismatics, Werner Burger completed his first work in this field in his published doctoral dissertation Ch’ing Cash until 1735. Published in 1976, this book covers the cast coins of the early Ch’ing dynasty, with information about the economic state of China during each emperor’s reign, mints, production techniques, counterfeits, and production figures. Burger also includes charts showing coins for each year for identification purposes. Following the completion of this book, Burger continued to collect and study cash coins. This included the sorting of approximately 7 tons of coins obtained through an Indonesian scrap metal dealer and review of 60 volumes of government mint documents. Using his coin collection and the archival documents, Burger completed a chronology Ch’ing cash based on coin size and weight, metallic content, and design changes including minute differences in calligraphy and stroke characteristics.

Burger’s analysis was published in two volumes. The first volume places the coins into a historical context by ruler with discussion of casting techniques and the master and mother coins used to produce consistent impressions. Each emperor’s section includes a brief description of the political and economic situation in China during their rule, production and significant features of coins produced at each mint, and photographic images and rubbings of coins from that period. Burger also includes related numismatic materials like paper money, counterfeit (both privately produced and government mint produced) coins, privately produced tokens, and non-cash circulating coins. Descriptions of changes in calligraphy are accompanied by either text images of the significant character or images from the respective coin. Appendices include information about the value of cash in exchange and mintage figures for each mint with notes regarding changes in production; this information is included in text descriptions in the main section of this volume.

The second volume is impressive for the presentation of the coins chronologically by design images in large map folded plates. Each plate presents rubbings of the cash coins produced during the designated period of time, with the obverse and reverse images located in the plate by production date and mint. While the plates by themselves would create a daunting task in identifying individual coins, one may refer to significant features (inscription characters and stroke features and other design elements) of year and mint varieties as described in the emperor’s section of the first volume. Each coin is designated by a catalog number using a system developed by Burger to indicate emperor, mint, regnal year, and other information about the coin, like the cash value if a denomination other than one cash and the metallic content.