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10 000 - Heaven Bank Note
| Issuer | Hell Bank / On Tai Lung |
|---|---|
| Year | |
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| Printer | On Tai Lung |
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| Obverse description | A large viaduct vignette occupies the upper portion in black, with a green underprint map of Europe at centre-right. A circular portrait medallion at right shows a bearded male figure in traditional imperial Chinese attire. Denomination numerals 10000 appear at each corner, with the issuer name in Chinese characters and English below the central vignette. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A multi-tiered Chinese gate tower vignette occupies the right side, rendered in fine line engraving in green and black. The left field carries a circular seal with Chinese characters and a repeating fan-shaped underprint pattern across the note. Denomination numerals 10000 appear at upper corners and lower left, with an alphanumeric text block underprint at centre. |
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| Comments |
Hell Bank Notes are ritual joss paper printed for burning at funerals and ancestral offerings — the assumption being that the smoke carries currency to the deceased in the afterlife. The practice blends Taoist and Buddhist folk traditions and has no connection to any state monetary system. On Tai Lung is one of the principal commercial manufacturers in Hong Kong supplying the funeral goods trade, and the "Hell Bank" denomination is purely nominal: the numbers are chosen for visual impressiveness, not exchange utility.
Denominations have inflated dramatically over the decades, tracking a kind of ritual one-upmanship among manufacturers. Ten thousand was once ambitious; current production routinely reaches the billions.