1 Tael Bullion coinage, Hunan Branch of The Imperial Bank

The Imperial Bank of China, established in 1897 as the country's first modern state bank, issued provincial tael-weight bullion pieces through its branch network during the final convulsive years of the Qing dynasty. The Hunan branch issues are among the rarest in this series — the province's monetary infrastructure was perpetually disrupted by lingering instability following the Taiping devastation of earlier decades and the growing revolutionary agitation that would culminate in the Wuchang Uprising just three years after this piece was struck.

Kann 962 is documented in vanishingly small surviving numbers, consistent with what appears to have been very limited branch production before the bank's effective collapse under the Republican transition.