page_title: Hubu Guanpiao
section_title: Seals, overprints, and endorsements
hierarchical_section_title: Hubu Guanpiao / Seals, overprints, and endorsements
caption_attribution_description: English: The Hubu Guanpiao (Traditional Chinese: 戶部官票, "Ministry of Revenue Government notes") is the name of two series of banknotes produced by the Qing dynasty, the first series was introduced under the Shunzhi Emperor during the Qing conquest of the Ming dynasty but was quickly abandoned after the this war ended, while the second series was introduced under the Xianfeng Emperor in response to the high military expenditures there government had to spend during the Taiping Rebellion, this second series was introduced alongside the the copper-alloy cash coins-based Da-Qing Baochao banknotes.
context_page_description: The Hubu Guanpiao is the name of two series of banknotes produced by the Qing dynasty, the first series was known as the Chaoguan and was introduced under the Shunzhi Emperor during the Qing conquest of the Ming dynasty but was quickly abandoned after this war ended, it was introduced amid residual ethnic Han resistance to the Manchu invaders. It was produced on a small scale, amounting to 120,000 strings of cash coins annually, and only lasted between 1651 and 1661. After the death of the Shunzhi Emperor in the year 1661, calls for resumption of banknote issuance weakened, although they never completely disappeared.
  Over the course of its 268 years, the central government of the Qing dynasty issued traditional Chinese paper money only twice. The second time was included the second series of the Hubu Guanpiao which was introduced under the Xianfeng Emperor in response to the high military expenditures there government had to spend during the Taiping Rebellion, this second series was introduced alongside the copper-alloy cash coins-based Da-Qing Baochao banknotes.
context_section_description: The seals (or "chops") used on the Hubu Guanpiao tael notes differed from those present on the Da-Qing Baochao cash notes, the main seal placed by the Ministry of Revenue was red in colour and contained the text "Ministry of Revenue Government Note" in both Mandarin Chinese and Manchu, this seal was found on every banknote in the Hubu Guanpiao series. Another seal present on every specimen in this series was that of the "Ministry of Revenue Issuing Department", the name of this department is somewhat confusing, as it did not actually place any banknotes into circulation. There were 3 other agencies actually designed for the issuing of these banknotes into circulation the government of the Beijing Metropolitan District, provincial treasuries, and the various military commissaries. These agencies would all affix their own seal, these seals were either shaped like a square or a rectangle and were found on both the obverse and reverse sides of the tael notes, the presence of these seals meant that the banknote had entered circulation through one of these agencies.
  It was also common for orange provincial overprints to br placed on Hubu Guanpiao tael notes, the name of the province was written vertically using two Chinese characters, with the exceptions of overprints from Manchuria which had three characters (三東省). American numismatist John E. Sandrock has stated to have seen Zhili, Henan, Anhui, Fengtian, Taiwan, and Manchuria.
  Another commonly applied form of overprint on the tael notes are the military overprints. They appear in colours orange, vermilion, or maroon and are shaped like vertical or horizontal columns of Chinese characters, or at times take the shape of four Chinese characters surrounded by a box, military overprints were exclusively placed on the obverse (or front) side of the banknote.
  An example of a military overprint from the province of Gansu reads: "This banknote is for exclusively circulation in Gansu province. This banknote may be used by merchants or civilians for payment of official taxes or to pay other market transactions".
  Some Hubu Guanpiao banknotes were re-issued using hand-stamped overprints, the overprint of this kind most commonly found is red in colour and rectangular in shape with an 8 character inscription which would read something like "Reissued in the 10th month of the year Xianfeng 6" (i.e., October 1856)., this overstamp was used on banknotes with the denominations of 10 taels and 50 taels.
caption: The seal of the Ministry of Revenue seal found at the centre of all Hubu Guanpiao (戶部官票) tael notes.
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