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5 Yuan Central Bank of China
| Issuer | Central Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1941 |
| 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 | 152 x 74 mm |
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| Obverse description | Portrait of Sun Yat-sen in intaglio at left, set within an ornate frame, against a central guilloche underprint bearing the large Chinese characters for "Five Yuan". Serial numbers appear twice at upper left and upper right. Two red seal stamps are positioned at lower left and lower right, with corner ornaments carrying the denomination character 伍 in each corner. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central vignette shows a gateway or pavilion structure set behind large spreading trees, rendered in fine line engraving. A blank oval medallion occupies the left side, while a guilloche rosette bearing the numeral "5" fills the right. The bank title and denomination appear in English lettering above and below the central vignette, with the year 1941 and printer's imprint at the foot. |
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| Comments |
By 1941 the Central Bank of China had relocated its operations inland to Chongqing following the Japanese advance, yet continued ordering from Thomas De La Rue in London — a logistically complex arrangement sustained through wartime shipping routes. Delivery of finished notes to Free China was genuinely precarious at this stage of the war.
P#236 belongs to a series that saw enormous print runs to compensate for accelerating inflation, itself driven by wartime expenditure and the Japanese military's deliberate flooding of occupied territories with counterfeit Chinese currency to destabilize the economy. The note was effectively obsolete before adequate distribution was possible in some regions.