Hell notes are truly the money of the dead. They're printed by private individuals, backed by fictitious banks. Values range from a few dollars, or Yuan, to several thousand, but the purchaser of the notes probably didn't pay more than a dollar or two for an entire stack. Hell notes are valueless. Only the dead can use them as money.
Technology now enters the picture.
Seeing the burning of perhaps millions of these notes as a waste of natural resources, Chinese officials are urging mourners to use a single blank check written to the deceased. It seems that 19th century Christian missionaries to China observed the practice and told the Chinese that since their relatives were not baptized, they were spending the after-life in hell. That finding was reported in a survey from the journal Nature. But what's interesting is that in 1916, 41.5 percent of respondents in the science group professed no belief in a deity, while 45.3 percent reported the same in 1996. The ACA is an independent effort and not affiliated with any other organization.