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10 Yuan Bank of Communications
| Issuer | Bank of Communications |
|---|---|
| Year | 1914 |
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| Printer | American Bank Note Company, New York, United States |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The central oval intaglio vignette presents a busy harbour scene with a large ocean-going steamship moored at a wharf, cargo barrels and horse-drawn wagons in the foreground, and a steam locomotive with freight cars at right, evoking the transport mandate of the issuing bank. Guilloche rosette panels bearing the numeral 10 flank the vignette at left and right, with BANK OF COMMUNICATIONS arching across the top and SHANGHAI in large letterpress below the vignette, flanked by two manuscript signatures. The date OCTOBER 1ST, 1914 and the printer's imprint AMERICAN BANK NOTE COMPANY, NEW YORK appear along the lower margin. |
| Reverse lettering | BANK OF COMMUNICATIONS PROMISES TO PAY THE BEARER ON DEMAND AT ITS OFFICE HERE TEN YUAN OF THE NATIONAL COINAGE OF THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA. SHANGHAI OCTOBER 1ST, 1914 AMERICAN BANK NOTE COMPANY, NEW YORK |
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| Comments |
The Bank of Communications was established in 1908 under the Qing dynasty to manage railway and postal revenues, making it one of the few Chinese institutions with a genuinely commercial mandate rather than a purely fiscal one. By 1914, with the Republic barely three years old and the old Imperial financial structure dismantled, the bank was among a small handful of institutions that Yuan Shikai's government trusted to issue national currency — a privilege it shared only with the Bank of China.
ABNC produced the plates in New York, and the quality of the intaglio work reflects their standard export-grade output for Asian clients of this period. The 1914 series circulated across multiple provinces but was frequently subject to regional suspension orders, particularly during the warlord fragmentation after 1916, when local military governors routinely refused to honor notes issued under central authority.