Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
5 Yuan Bank of China
| Issuer | Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1940 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Rectangular |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Intaglio-printed portrait of Sun Yat-sen in an oval vignette at left, rendered in fine line engraving on a blue guilloche ground. The bank title 行銀國中 appears in large Chinese characters across the top, flanked by the denomination 伍 in ornate cartouches at each corner. A large central denomination panel with the characters 伍圓 is set within an elaborate guilloche rosette, with two facsimile signatures below — one titled GENERAL MANAGER and one titled MANAGER — and the Republic year inscription along the lower border. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 行銀國中 圓伍 印年九十二國民華中 (Translation: Bank of China Five Yuan Printed in the 29th year of the Republic of China) |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Bank of China's 1940 series was produced by the American Bank Note Company at a moment when the Nationalist government's access to foreign printing facilities was becoming strategically critical. With Japanese forces controlling much of coastal China, having currency printed in New York — well beyond any possible interdiction — gave the Chongqing government reliable access to professionally engraved, difficult-to-counterfeit paper money.
Japanese military authorities ran sophisticated counterfeiting operations throughout the occupation, targeting exactly this kind of circulating Nationalist currency to destabilize the wartime economy. ABNCo's intaglio work was a deliberate countermeasure.