Brass Money Tree | Small Solid Brass Tree Ornament

Description

A thirty gram brass money tree for the corner of a desk

This is a small brass money tree, about 3.4 cm wide and 3.4 cm tall. It weighs 30 g, heavy enough to feel solid in the palm.

The crown is a stack of ingots. The base is engraved with a coin motif, and the trunk carries a single 财 character, the word for wealth.

It sits on a desk, a windowsill, or the counter of a small shop. Nothing about it is loud, and that is the point.

Where the brass money tree comes from

The Chinese name is 摇钱树 (yaoqianshu), the tree you shake for money. The image is very old.

Bronze trees with coin shaped leaves were cast in the Eastern Han period, mostly in what is now Sichuan. They were placed in tombs as a wish for a family’s continued prosperity.

The tree left the tomb and moved onto the desk centuries ago. In folk practice it belongs to Lunar New Year, when a branch of coins goes up by the door and ingots are stacked beneath it.

The wish is blunt and cheerful: may a little of this come true.

What the small ingots are

The half moon shapes in the crown are 元宝 (yuanbao), the ingot form that served as money in imperial China.

Silver was cast into that shape for centuries, and it later became the standard picture of stored wealth: the thing you keep rather than the thing you spend.

On this brass money tree the ingots are stacked into a canopy, dozens of them, which is the traditional way of drawing abundance. A stack says more than one ingot can.

Why brass, and not gold

Gold plated ornaments look tired within a year of handling, because the plating wears thin at the high points. Solid brass does not have that problem.

The metal goes darker as it ages. The recesses go darker than the raised edges, and the piece ends up looking older than it is.

A brass money tree gets picked up, wiped down and pushed around a desk, so the metal has to take it.

Brass is also the honest version of the idea. In the classical five phases, metal governs 金, the character that means both metal and money. There is no need to gild a symbol that already says what it means.

How big is 3.4 cm, really

Small. The base is a little wider than a two euro coin, and the whole tree is shorter than a thumb.

That is deliberate. A brass money tree this size fits where the work happens: beside a keyboard, on a shelf edge, on a till, or in a drawer that gets opened every day.

If you want it to read as a centrepiece, set two of them side by side. If you want a heavy object to hold, this is not that piece, and the photographs here show the true scale.

Metal, water, and money

In the five phases (五行), metal generates water, and water is the element the feng shui tradition ties to cash flow. Metal for value, water for movement, the tree itself for growth.

A tree is wood, and metal controls wood in the same system. A purist can read the combination either way. We sell a symbol and not a cure, so take the reading you find useful.

The 6 and the 9 in one small object

Our name comes from the old way of writing yin and yang. Six is the even, receiving side. Nine is the odd, active side. Every piece we make is an attempt to hold both at once.

The wish for more is the nine in this brass money tree: movement, ambition, money coming in.

The fact that it sits still and asks nothing of you is the six. A heavy little object on a desk does its work quietly.

Where people put it

• On a desk, in the corner your eye lands on when you look up from the screen.
• Next to a till, a card reader, or a ledger, where money actually changes hands.
• In the wealth corner. Most feng shui teachers place it in the southeast of a room, the sector tied to income and growth.
• On an entryway shelf, so the household passes it on the way out.
• On a market stall or a shop counter, where small change moves all day.

If you would rather not explain it to anyone, it also works as a plain brass ornament. Nobody has to know it is a wish.

What it pairs with

The brass money tree shares a shelf well with the brass bagua mirror. Same metal, same desk: one for what comes in, one for what stays out.

If you want the idea on your wrist instead, the handmade brass bead bracelet uses the same brass and the same Yang reading.

Both live in our feng shui collection, where the rest of the home energy pieces are sorted.

What arrives

One solid brass money tree with the aged finish already on it. The crown is stacked ingots, the base is engraved with a coin motif, and the trunk carries the 财 character.

The finish varies slightly from piece to piece, so no two are identical. That is normal for antiqued brass and not a defect.

Care

• Dust the brass money tree with a dry, soft cloth. A dry paint brush reaches between the ingots.
• Skip the metal polish if you want the aged look. Polish lifts the dark out of the recesses and flattens the piece.
• Keep it out of standing water and away from the bathroom. Brass spots when water sits on it.
• Handling is fine. Skin oils darken the high points, which is part of how these pieces age.

A small habit, if you want one

Put a coin from your own currency under the base. It costs nothing, and it makes the object yours rather than a general symbol.

At the start of a month, pick up the tree and name the one piece of work you want paid for by the next time you hold it. Then put it back and get on with the day.

As a gift

Housewarmings, a first office, a shop opening, or Lunar New Year. A brass money tree also suits the person who already has everything, because it is small enough to send and odd enough to be remembered.

For anyone starting something, a first year trading or a new desk in a new city, the meaning needs no explaining. It says: steady work, and may the money follow.

A short note on what this is not

We do not promise money, business results, or luck. A brass object does not decide any of that, and we would not tell you otherwise.

What you get is a solid piece of metal and the wish that comes with the shape.

Specifications

• Material: solid brass with an antiqued finish.
• Size: about 3.4 cm wide and 3.4 cm tall (roughly 1.3 in each way).
• Weight: about 30 g.
• Crown: stacked 元宝 ingots.
• Base: engraved coin motif.
• Trunk: a single 财 character.
• Variation: the patina differs slightly from piece to piece.