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10 Yuan Central Bank of China
| Issuer | Central Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1940 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Portrait of Sun Yat-sen in an intaglio-engraved oval vignette at right, facing three-quarters left. At centre-left, a large floral medallion carries the denomination characters 拾圓 within a dark lobed frame, set against a fine guilloche underprint. The bank title 中央銀行 appears across the top, with two red seal impressions flanking the date inscription 中華民國二十九年 at the lower centre, and the printer's imprint along the bottom margin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in green, dominated by an intricate guilloche pattern of rosettes and lathe-work filling the entire field. A large numeral 10 occupies the central medallion, flanked by symmetrical floral rosettes at left and right. The English bank title THE CENTRAL BANK OF CHINA arches across the top within a decorative ribbon, with the denomination TEN YUAN and date 1940 displayed in a cartouche at the lower centre; two manuscript signatures appear below the central vignette, with the printer's imprint CHUNG HWA BOOK CO., LTD. at the foot. |
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| Comments |
The Central Bank of China's 1940 note issues were produced under increasingly difficult wartime conditions, with Shanghai's printing infrastructure operating under Japanese occupation pressure following the fall of the city in 1937. Chung Hwa Book Co. was one of several Shanghai-based printers the nationalist government continued to use even as political control of the city fractured — a pragmatic arrangement that raises genuine questions about the security and continuity of wartime currency production.
P#228 belongs to a series that circulated across Free China alongside notes from competing quasi-governmental banks, contributing to the inflationary spiral that accelerated sharply after 1941. By 1945, the purchasing power of the yuan had collapsed almost beyond reckoning.