Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 000 000 Yuan
| Issuer | Central Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1949 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Chung Hwa Book Co. Ltd. |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A central vignette presents a steel truss railway bridge over a river busy with sailing vessels and small craft, rendered in fine intaglio line work in brown. The denomination 1000000 appears in large numerals in each corner, and the legend ONE MILLION GOLD YUAN is set in bold letterpress at the bottom centre below the bridge scene. The printer's imprint CHUNG HWA BOOK CO. LTD. appears at the foot of the note. |
| Reverse lettering | THE CENTRAL BANK OF CHINA ONE MILLION GOLD YUAN 1949 CHUNG HWA BOOK CO. LTD. |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
By mid-1949, the Nationalist government's gold yuan reform had already collapsed, and the Central Bank of China was printing denominations that would have been unthinkable two years earlier. This one-million yuan note was part of the final hyperinflationary cascade — the gold yuan itself, introduced in August 1948 as a supposed stabilizing currency, lost virtually all value within months, forcing the issuance of ever-larger denominations before the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan effectively ended mainland operations.
Chung Hwa Book Co. had been printing currency and official documents in Shanghai for decades, but by this point the presses were racing against economic collapse rather than serving any functional monetary purpose.