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500 Yuan Central Bank of China
| Issuer | Central Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1944 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 166 × 82 mm |
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| Obverse description | Intaglio-printed note in brown and dark brown tones, centred on a portrait vignette of Dr. Sun Yat-sen within an elaborate guilloche underprint border. Two red official seals and two red serial numbers are placed on the face alongside Chinese character inscriptions in dark brown. Ornamental security border elements frame the entire composition. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 行銀央中 圓佰五 印年三十三國民華中 (Translation: Central Bank of China 500 Yuan Printed in the 33rd year of the Republic) |
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| Comments |
The Central Bank of China turned to the British American Bank Note Company in Ottawa during the war years partly because its usual suppliers — primarily American Bank Note and its affiliates — were stretched across Allied contract work. The BABN had the capacity and the security credentials. This 500 Yuan note was issued as Nationalist China's wartime inflation was already accelerating well beyond what denominations like this could practically address; within two years, the currency would require notes in the millions of Yuan.
P#267 is one of several BABN-produced issues from this period that are sometimes misattributed to American printers. The Ottawa imprint is explicit on the note itself.