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1 Dollar
| Issuer | Imperial Chinese Railways |
|---|---|
| Year | 1895 |
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| Currency | Dollar (1898-1911) |
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| Obverse description | Dated 22.4.1895. Blue ink on orange underprint. Central vignette of a train passing through a fortress gateway. Vertical Chinese script inscriptions surround the central design, with guilloche border framing. Issued by the Peiyang Branch. |
|---|---|
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| Variants | P#A56a - Issued note P#A56r - Unsigned remainder |
| Comments |
Imperial Chinese Railways was not a central bank or provincial treasury but a quasi-governmental infrastructure body, and its 1895 dollar note reflects that unusual status — issued to facilitate railway construction financing at a moment when the Qing dynasty was scrambling to fund modernization without surrendering full control to foreign creditors. The timing is pointed: 1895 is the year the Treaty of Shimonoseki ended the First Sino-Japanese War, and railway concessions were already becoming a flashpoint for foreign pressure on Chinese sovereignty.
Barclay & Fry of London printed the note. The firm handled a range of colonial and quasi-colonial financial instruments in this period, though they were less prominent than contemporaries like Bradbury Wilkinson or De La Rue.