2000 Customs Gold Units

The Customs Gold Unit was a specialized fiscal instrument introduced in 1930 to stabilize tariff collection against exchange rate volatility — duties were assessed in CGUs rather than the depreciating fiat currency of the moment. By 1947, the underlying logic had collapsed entirely. Hyperinflation was dismantling the Nationalist financial system faster than new denominations could be printed, and the CGU itself had ceased to function as any kind of stable unit of account.

De La Rue produced this note in London, an arrangement that continued even as the Kuomintang government's hold on the mainland deteriorated. The 2000 CGU denomination is among the higher values in the late wartime and postwar CGU series, reflecting just how far the purchasing power of earlier units had eroded.