1 Dollar

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.