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10 000 Dollars - Hell Bank Note
| Issuer | Hell Bank (冥都銀行) |
|---|---|
| Year | |
| Type | Vouchers |
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| Obverse description | Central oval vignette bears an engraved portrait of the Jade Emperor in imperial robes and formal court headdress with hanging jade beads, flanked by floral guilloche underprints in green with large numeral value tablets. Two manuscript signatures appear below the vignette, with ornate scroll-work borders framing the entire design in dark olive-black letterpress. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 10000 HELL BANK NOTE 10000 冥都銀行 NO. 5101988 H 10000 壹萬圓 陰冥通用 DOLLARS 冥府紙幣 (Signature) (Signature) 10000 10000 TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS |
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| Comments |
Hell Bank Notes are ritual joss paper printed for burning at funerals and ancestral ceremonies, particularly in Chinese, Vietnamese, and broader East Asian Buddhist and Taoist traditions. The denomination on this example — 10,000 dollars — reflects a logic of abundance: offerings burned in the physical world are understood to transfer wealth to the deceased in the afterlife. The numbers are purely symbolic and escalate freely, with some notes running into the billions.
Not legal tender anywhere, never issued by any monetary authority, and outside the scope of conventional numismatics — but collected widely as ethnographic objects.