1 Tael

The Imperial Bank of China was itself only established in 1897, making this 1898 note among the earliest issues from an institution that had barely found its footing. The bank was a semi-official hybrid — nominally private but operating under government charter — and its early notes struggled for acceptance in a market where regional banks and foreign treaty-port institutions already commanded more trust.

Bradbury, Wilkinson engraved and printed the series from their New Malden works. The tael denomination is notable: unlike the yuan, which was tied to coin, the tael was a weight-based unit of silver that varied by region and by trade guild convention — its value in Shanghai differed from its value in Hankou, which created persistent problems for any note that claimed to represent it.