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 EURO - Hell Bank Note
| Issuer | Hell Bank (Ngân Hàng Địa Phủ) |
|---|---|
| Year | 2010 |
| 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 | Purple and pink tones overall, styled after the genuine €500 banknote. Left vignette shows a bust of a Chinese deity or emperor in traditional court attire with red and green robes and a formal headdress, replacing the usual European architectural motif. Upper left bears a blue EU circle-of-stars flag emblem; right side carries a large architectural underprint of a modern building. Chinese characters 地府通用 appear below the left vignette alongside the large denomination numeral and EURO legend. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BCE ECB EZB EKT EKP 2010 地府通用 500 EURO EYPO |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| 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 joss paper printed for ritual burning at funerals and ancestral offerings across Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhist and Taoist communities — the idea being that the smoke transmits wealth to the deceased in the afterlife. The "Hell Bank" branding, ubiquitous on these items since at least the mid-twentieth century, is a translation artifact: 地府 (Địa Phủ / Dìfǔ) means the underworld or realm of the dead, not a place of punishment in the Western theological sense.
These are not currency in any legal or numismatic sense, and Pick does not catalog them. Collectors acquire them as ephemera or curios.