Catalog
500 - Hell Bank Note
| Issuer | 冥都銀行 (Bank of Hades) |
|---|---|
| Year | |
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| Currency | Hell Bank Note (1800s-date) |
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| Obverse description | Red letterpress print on a green chrysanthemum underprint. A central vignette presents a bust portrait of a mandarin in traditional robes, framed by decorative borders. A serial number appears at the bottom center, with Chinese inscriptions identifying the issuing institution and denomination. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 通用冥幣 冥都銀行 伍佰 K 488844 |
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| Comments |
Hell bank notes are votive offerings burned at funerals and ancestral ceremonies in Chinese folk religious practice, intended to transfer wealth to the deceased in the afterlife. The issuing "authority" — variously rendered as Bank of Hades, Bank of Hell, or similar — carries no monetary standing anywhere, living or dead. These are not numismatic items in any conventional sense, though they circulate freely through Chinatown novelty shops and joss paper suppliers across Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and diaspora communities worldwide.
Hong Kong has been the dominant production center for export-quality hell money since the mid-twentieth century, with denominations escalating wildly over decades — inflation, apparently, knows no jurisdictional limits.