Catalog
10 Yuan
| Issuer | Chow Shing Kee Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1937 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in green on a light ground, with a central text panel carrying vertical Chinese characters identifying the issuing bank and the denomination. An ornate foliate border frames the note at top and bottom, with the English inscription CHOW SHING KEE and the issuer's name in Chinese (周勝記) displayed in the upper section alongside the place of issue MACAO (門澳). A red oval chop seal and a second rectangular red seal are applied in the left margin, and a serial number appears in the lower right area. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | CHOW SHING KEE 門澳 MАСАО 周勝記 憑票交 廣東雙毫銀拾員正 拾員 民國廿年十月 大洋 五貳几話電 X No 1651 |
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| Comments |
Chow Shing Kee was one of Macao's small private exchange banks — not a chartered institution in any modern regulatory sense, but a licensed money changer operating under Portuguese colonial oversight. Notes of this type circulated primarily in Macao and across the adjacent Pearl River Delta trading routes, competing with Hong Kong dollar instruments and Chinese Nationalist-era currency simultaneously.
1937 is the year the Second Sino-Japanese War began in earnest. That timing matters: cross-border confidence in smaller private issuers collapsed quickly as the conflict spread, and many notes from this class of institution were abandoned in hoards rather than redeemed. The Macao printing origin is confirmed — the Portuguese enclave maintained its own small commercial printing infrastructure throughout the colonial period.