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400 Yuan Central Bank of China
| Issuer | Central Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1945 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 400 Yuan |
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| Obverse description | Portrait of Sun Yat-sen in an oval vignette at left, set against an overall red guilloche underprint. The large denomination characters 肆佰圓 are displayed in a central panel framed by decorative borders, with the bank title 中央銀行 across the top and serial number appearing twice in the upper field. The note is printed in red on white paper with repeated corner denomination numerals. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 中央銀行 肆佰圓 中華民國三十四年印 (Translation: Central Bank of China / Four Hundred Yuan / Printed in the 34th year of the Republic of China) |
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| Comments |
The 400 Yuan denomination is an artifact of wartime hyperinflation arithmetic. By 1945, the Nationalist government's finances had been gutted by eight years of conflict with Japan, and the Central Bank was issuing notes in denominations that would have seemed absurd before the war — 400 Yuan being one of the more awkward multiples, designed to replace bundles of smaller notes rather than serve any natural transactional logic.
The Central Engraving and Printing Works in Shanghai had been churning out increasingly large denominations under increasingly difficult conditions. Within three years of this note's issue date, inflation would render it essentially worthless long before any formal demonetization.