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!
500 000 Dollars - Hell Bank Note
| Issuer | Hell Bank (冥通銀行) |
|---|---|
| Year | |
| Type | Vouchers |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Central oval vignette of the Jade Emperor in imperial robes and crown, set against a green guilloche underprint. Denomination panels in red appear at left and right within lobed cartouches, with the bank name in a scrolled banner at top and the inscription 地府通用 in a ribbon at the base of the vignette. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Right-of-center vignette of a multi-tiered Chinese temple building with grand staircase, rendered in blue on a buff paper ground. At left, a lobed guilloche rosette bears the numeral 500000; the inscription 地府通用鈔票 appears in a panel at the base. A serial number is printed at upper left alongside the legend HELL BANK NOTE. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| 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 |
Hell Bank Notes are votive offerings burned in Chinese funerary rituals so that the deceased may have currency in the afterlife. The "Hell Bank" name is a Western mistranslation — the Chinese 冥通銀行 translates more accurately as something like "Bank of the Underworld" or "Netherworld Communication Bank," with no infernal connotation in the original. The practice derives from the broader tradition of burning joss paper, which predates printed banknote forms by centuries.
Collected seriously since the 1980s in the West, largely as novelty items. No issuing authority, no legal tender status anywhere — but that, of course, is the point.