500 Dollars

The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China was one of the exchange banks operating under Royal Charter, primarily financing the opium, cotton, and tea trades moving through Hong Kong and the treaty ports. A $500 denomination was not a retail instrument — notes at this face value moved between merchants, compradors, and the bank's own branches as a wholesale settlement tool.

Perkins, Bacon had long specialized in security printing for colonial and overseas institutions, and their intaglio work on high-denomination exchange bank notes from this period is technically accomplished. Very few examples from this issuer and year survive in any condition; the bank was absorbed into the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China in 1893, and most outstanding paper was retired.