Silver made of paper

The sheets of paper on this table in the depot of the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen are upside down. Imagine yourself standing on the opposite side of the table, bent over these banknotes.

These are five Chinese banknotes. The design is centuries-old. The rule was: the larger the size, the higher the value. In a while, we will start with the most valuable one. Can you see which one that is?

But first: banknotes like these were made between 1853 and 1859, during the reign of the Xianfeng emperor. It was a period during which the production of copper coins stagnated - just when it became urgent in order to pay the army for a civil war that was raging across China.

Uncertain times. Not only was there too little capacity to cast new coins, the people also started to hoard that other precious metal, silver. And if that was not enough, it was a time in which Western powers started to interfere in Chinese affairs. That too resulted in the treasury being depleted of its money and silver. Thus the government reluctantly fell back on paper money, a centuries-old principle that was viewed with strong suspicion. After all, history had proven that issuing banknotes almost always resulted in high inflation.

The banknotes turned out to be writings on the wall: the last Chinese dynasty was nearing its end. It was not actually Chinese anyway. You can see that from the largest banknote, the silver one.