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!
50 000 Customs Gold Units
| Issuer | Central Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1948 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 50 000 Customs Gold Units (50 000 關金圓) (50 000) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central vignette shows the Central Bank of China headquarters building in Shanghai, rendered in fine line engraving with the institution name arched above. Below the building vignette, a large numeral 50000 appears within a guilloche panel alongside the English denomination legend. Two manuscript signatures of bank officials appear at the lower portion, above the year date 1948. Corner numerals 50000 repeat at all four corners within ornamental frames. |
| Reverse lettering | THE CENTRAL BANK OF CHINA FIFTY THOUSAND CUSTOMS GOLD UNIT 50000 1948 CHUNG HWA BOOK CO., LTD. |
| 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 Customs Gold Unit was introduced in February 1948 as a notional accounting currency intended to stabilize import duty collection against rampant inflation — it was pegged to gold at a fixed rate and used exclusively for customs valuation purposes. Within months, hyperinflation had rendered the peg meaningless, and the CGU itself was caught in the same spiral it had been designed to circumvent.
Chang Kia-Ngau's signature here is notable: he had previously served as governor of the Bank of China and was a persistent, largely ignored voice for fiscal restraint within the Nationalist government's financial apparatus. By mid-1948 the entire CGU series was superseded by the Gold Yuan reform — one of the most catastrophically failed currency revaluations of the twentieth century.