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10 Taels
| Issuer | Imperial Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1898 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Dated 14.11.1898, Peking Branch issue. Two confronted dragons flank a central circular device at upper centre, with the denomination 拾兩 (10 Taels) in red at centre. Text columns in Chinese script fill the field, framed by a geometric guilloche border in blue with ornamental corner pieces. |
|---|---|
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| Variants | P#A42a - Issued note P#A42r - Remainder, perforated CANCELLED |
| Comments |
The Imperial Bank of China was the country's first Sino-foreign joint venture bank, established in 1897 under a government charter that gave it note-issuing rights — a privilege bitterly contested by existing foreign banks operating in the treaty ports. Barclay & Fry, a London security printer with experience in colonial and overseas currency work, produced the plates for this inaugural series.
The 1898 issue never achieved meaningful circulation. The bank's operational reach was limited, public confidence in domestic paper was fragile, and the Qing financial system was in no condition to support a new institution's currency against silver. Surviving examples are genuinely rare partly because so few entered daily use.
The tael denomination — a unit of account rather than a minted coin — was itself a bureaucratic abstraction that varied in weight and fineness by region.