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50 000 000 - Hell Bank Note
| Issuer | Hell Bank Corporation (冥通銀行) |
|---|---|
| Year | |
| Type | Religious banknote |
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| Obverse description | Red letterpress print on a green guilloche underprint. The central vignette carries a frontal portrait of the Jade Emperor in full traditional imperial regalia. The face value in Chinese characters (伍千萬) appears in both upper and lower margins, with issuer title and serial designations framing the portrait in a layout closely modelled on conventional legal-tender banknote design, adapted here for ceremonial joss paper use. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 伍千萬 冥通銀行 T 52147 冥府紙幣 陰冥通用 |
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| Comments |
Hell Bank Notes are votive currency burned during Chinese funerary and ancestral rituals, intended to transfer wealth to the deceased in the afterlife. They are not, and never were, legal tender in any jurisdiction. The "Hell Bank Corporation" imprint is a commercial convention, not a chartered institution — the name is a Western-influenced rendering of a concept with roots in the Tang Dynasty practice of burning paper effigies as grave goods.
Hong Kong became the dominant manufacturing center for this material through the twentieth century, exporting globally to diaspora communities. Collector interest is real but modest; these circulate freely at low cost and hold no scarcity value in standard grades.