Fake Chinese Banknotes

Last for today: three fantasy notes, at least one of which has only recently appeared.

First note: what looks like a small commercial or exchange note type, and emblazoned with the Temple of Heaven at Beijing. Other than the 'off' appearance of the Chinese characters, there's not too much to be said for this. It's one of the better attempts perhaps.


Second note: 1931 5 Yuan - appears to be an early communist issue, and borrows the soldier vignette from a genuine note, but is again a fraud. Anything resembling this type of note didn't appear as early as 1931.


The third note is a mix of elements - The Xinluhang Bank never existed and the note is clearly taking the style of late provincial issues. The vignette on the front has been taken from the 1 & 5 cents of the Amoy Industrial Bank and reversed, and the building depicted on the back is the former National Assembly Hall at Nanking (Nanjing), taken from Central Bank of China issues of 1948. And no such note denomination would have been expressed as '100 cts' by 1949.

This next example is quite a well known fake/forgery type. The Bureau of Engraving & Printing Peking, produced a series of notes (mostly if not all unissued) depicting Prince Chun and a dragon. Versions of these notes were printed titled for the Bureau itself, the Ta Ching Bank and some type of exchange note. The adapted designs were later reused by the Japanese for the early puppet Federal Reserve Bank of China issues.

There are modern dot matrix printed copies of these notes however the most common examples seem to be of the type below. Poorer quality printing than the original notes, possibly lithograph printing? The examples that I've seen have 'Sight Banknote' on the back, which never appeared on the original notes and may have been placed there to distinguish them. I'm not sure what the origin of these is, they may have been printed as souvenirs and may have some age themselves? There is also the possibility that these fakes have themselves been faked! Some online examples appear suspicously as newly printed copies.

Here it is...I thought it was funny that they still try to sell it on ebay.

On a more positive note perhaps (?), not all forgeries are 'bad news'. Albeit rarely, but sometimes period forgeries appear. These are fascinating examples of social or military history and are in some cases more valuable historically (and yes, commercially) than the genuine notes.

Occasionally for example, lithographed forgeries of the Bank of Communications Shanghai 5 and 10 Yuan notes appear (1933 issues of the series of 1914). The genuine notes are the most common of the BOC issues. From what I've read (what little there is) some of the forgeries of these and other Nationalist banknotes were printed by the Japanese during the war, and other were produced by criminal gangs in Shanghai and Tientsin (Tianjin).

The example that I have of the 5 Yuan has been circulated, is litho printed on bond paper. I only recently noticed that most of the word 'bond' is discernable on one of the vertical margins!

Period forgeries:

I bet they wished the ground would open up and swallow them when they found out. But then if the fakes are that good (and the better one's do seem to be), it's not surprising. Sounds like a fascinating article.

Of Chinese coins: I bought a trio of large holed bronze/copper coins of the type that used to be produced in the 19th century, large cash coins or medallions, for not much money and I'm certain they are fake but they look very authentic. It's worrying as I've seen such coins go to unsuspecting buyers. It's hard to know if you can trust anything in the way of coins! And certain types of banknotes - some of the fakes of early Peoples Bank of China notes are so convincing that I've decided to avoid buying any unless especially cheap and from a reputable source. And even then you dont know - even major museums can be fooled by fakes of all kinds.

At some point you have to hope for best I suppose!

Hi all, haven't been on here for a while but thought I'd mention a current horror on e-bay.

The US seller tomato009 has a whole string of auctions of fake Chinese notes that are currently ending as I write this. And we're not talking a few pounds or dollars either. I have just seen one of his fakes - a Pei Yang Bank of Tientsin, I think - sell for over $1,000 US.

Another one supposedly of the Ta Ching Bank is about to end at over $220. Not even a fake but one of the poor fantasy types.

And it is impossible to report these fakes to e-bay! Why am I not really surprised.

I just read through this and realised how incredibly difficult it is to spot fakes, seems to me that avoiding any non-cataloged note at all costs.

In Hong Kong Antique Market, they sell a whole album of these fake china notes. They're all fake as the paper felt like A4 printing paper with banknote design.