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5 Yuan / Dollars Chungking
| Issuer | Central Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1949 |
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| Printer | Chung Hwa Book Co., Ltd. |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 行銀央中 券元銀 圓伍 重 慶 年八十三國民華中 (Translation: Central Bank of China Silver Yuan Note Five Yuan Chongqing Year 38 of the Chinese Republic) |
| Reverse description | A central circular vignette contains a Chinese junk under full sail, surrounded by intricate guilloche lacework. The legend THE CENTRAL BANK OF CHINA PROMISES TO PAY THE BEARER ON DEMAND arches across the top, with FIVE SILVER DOLLARS and CHUNGKING repeated in mirror fashion at left and right. The date 1949 appears at the bottom centre, with the printer's imprint below. |
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| Comments |
By the time this note was printed, the Central Bank of China's currency program was effectively in freefall. The Gold Yuan reform of August 1948 had already collapsed within months under catastrophic hyperinflation, and 1949 saw the Nationalist government retreating toward Taiwan while issuing notes denominated in Silver Yuan — a desperate rebranding that fooled almost nobody. The Chungking designation reflects the wartime capital's continued symbolic weight, even as Communist forces were closing in on the city itself, which fell in November 1949.
Chung Hwa Book Co. printed enormous volumes across multiple denominations in this period. Notes survive in quantity; the circumstances that produced them do not.