 | What is Pick Number? |  | Refers to Albert Pick, author of the "Standard Catalog of World Paper Money" published by Krause Publications on general issues. Nearly everyone who deals in world paper uses this system for identifying notes. Every note within a country has a number associated with it, often shown in the form "P-34" for general issues and "PS-34" for specialized issues (volume 1). PFX stands for foreign exchange; PCS stands for collector series, usually specimen or non legal tender; PR stands for regional issues. Some notes have signature varieties or serial number varieties, each variety is number P123a, P123b, P123c and so on. P123s would be a specimen of P123, and P123x would be an error note of P123. Since every country has the same numbers, a note is identified by country and Pick number. For example, USA P-504 is your garden variety series 1999 1 dollar bill. | |
| Why do I not use the Pick number for the first series of RMB? | | In Pick numbering scheme, the first series RMB banknotes are sorted by date, then by denomination. However, the editors failed to recognize the issuance dates of this series. All banknotes issued in 1949 are treated as if they are issued on the same date, which is far from true. In addition, all Chinese catalogs use a unified scheme, which sorts by denomination first, then by date. That is the numbering I use.
| RMB1- | Pick | denom | obverse |
| 1 | 800 | 1 | Labour and farmer |
| 2 | 812 | 1 | Factory |
| 3 | 801 | 5 | Chinese junks |
| 4 | 802 | 5 | Pastured sheeps |
| 5 | 814 | 5 | Bull |
| 6 | 813 | 5 | Weaving |
| 7 | 803 | 10 | Farmers, coal mine |
| 8 | 815 | 10 | Worker sawing lumber, farmer plowing |
| 9 | 817 | 10 | Railway station |
| 10 | 816 | 10 | Labour and farmer |
| 11 | 804 | 20 | Donkey, trains |
| 12 | 824 | 20 | Man pushing ore car |
| 13 | 820 | 20 | Longevity Hill (blue) |
| 14 | 819 | 20 | Longevity Hill (brown) |
| 15 | 821 | 20 | Grade separation bridge |
| 16 | 822 | 20 | Chinese junks, trains |
| 17 | 823 | 20 | Agricultural occupations |
| 18 | 805 | 50 | Donkey, coal mine car |
| 19 | 827 | 50 | Trains, bridge (red) |
| 20 | 826 | 50 | Trains, bridge (blue) |
| 21 | 829 | 50 | Railroad |
| 22 | 830 | 50 | Labour and farmer |
| 23 | 828 | 50 | Steam roller |
| 24 | 808 | 100 | Farmer plowing, factory |
| 25 | 807 | 100 | Factory, railway station |
| 26 | 806 | 100 | Longevity Hill |
| 27 | 834 | 100 | Factory |
| 28 | 832 | 100 | Beihai Bridge (blue underprint) |
| 29 | 833 | 100 | Beihai Bridge (yellow underprint) |
| 30 | 831 | 100 | Steamboat |
| 31 | 836 | 100 | Transportation |
| 32 | 835 | 100 | Chinese junks |
| 33 | 841 | 200 | Summer Palace |
| 34 | 837 | 200 | Palace of Parting Clouds |
| 35 | 838 | 200 | The Great Wall |
| 36 | 840 | 200 | Steel plant |
| 37 | 839 | 200 | Harvesting |
| 38 | 842 | 500 | Farmer, bridge |
| 39 | 844 | 500 | Zhengyangmen |
| 40 | 843 | 500 | Steam Shovel |
| 41 | 846 | 500 | Tractor |
| 42 | 845 | 500 | Farmer plowing |
| 43 | 857 | 500 | Zhande City |
| 44 | 810 | 1000 | Farmer plowing |
| 45 | 849 | 1000 | Harvesting |
| 46 | 848 | 1000 | Three tractor |
| 47 | 850 | 1000 | Man pushing ore car, farmer plowing |
| 48 | 847 | 1000 | Qiantang River Bridge |
| 49 | 857A | 1000 | Pastured horses |
| 50 | 851 | 5000 | Tractor |
| 51 | 852 | 5000 | Factory |
| 52 | 857B | 5000 | Camel |
| 53 | 857C | 5000 | Pastured sheeps |
| 54 | 859 | 5000 | Wei River Bridge |
| 55 | 854 | 10000 | Steamboat |
| 56 | 853 | 10000 | Farmer plowing with two horses |
| 57 | 858A | 10000 | Pastured horses |
| 58 | 858 | 10000 | Camel |
| 59 | 856 | 50000 | Xinhuamen (New China Gate) |
| 60 | 855 | 50000 | Tractor |
| RMB1- | Pick | denom | obverse |
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| What is the grading scheme on banknotes? | | From the best to the worse, UNC (uncirculated), AU (about uncirculated), EF (Extremely Fine), VF (very fine), F (fine), VG (very good), G (good), Fair, Poor. Click here for detail explanation for those notations. Asian collectors may use another grading scheme. A numeric score from 0 to 100 is given according to its newness, 100 is equivalent to UNC. | |
| What is my file naming convention? | | Country(region)Pnumber-denomination-print year(issue year)
If the issue year is the same as the print year, the "(issue year)" is neglected
"_a" is appended for obverse side; "_b" is appended for reverse side | |
| What is my banknote image source? | | They are scanned by Epson Expression 836XL directly, or from colour catelogs, if I don't have them. The resolution is 150 dpi on regular scans, 300 dpi on post-1999 notes, and 800 dpi on details such as microtext. | |
| What are curvy 3 and flat 3? | | Curvy 3 and flat 3 refer to the font variation on some of the earlier notes (both RMB and TWD).  is an example of curvy 3, and  is an example of flat 3 (look at the top portion of the 3s). Notes with such variety are priced differently with curvy 3, flat 3, or w/o 3. I have never seen an English website/book that distinguishes the difference, I guess I am the first. The Following notes have curvy 3 / flat 3 variation.
ChinaPRP810-1000Yuan-1948
ChinaPRP833-100Yuan-1949
ChinaPRP837-200Yuan-1949
TaiwanP1950-1Yuan-1949
TaiwanP1953-5Yuan-1949
TaiwanP1964-1Yuan-1954
TaiwanP1966-1Yuan-1954
TaiwanP1967-10Yuan-1954
TaiwanP1968-5Yuan-1955(1956)
TaiwanP1969-10Yuan-1960(1963)
TaiwanP1971a-1Yuan-1961
TaiwanP1972-5Yuan-1961
TaiwanP1976-50Yuan-1964 | |
| What are curvy water and straight water? | | If you speak Chinese, it will be a lot easier to explain this. Curvy water and straight water refer to the seal variation on some Taiwanese notes. There is two seals below which both read "General Manager of Bank of Taiwan". The second word on the seal is "wan" as in Taiwan. The left part of wan is a radical which means water. Flat 3 notes are usually curvy water; and curvy 3 notes are usually straight water.
The following notes have such variation
TaiwanP1946-1Cent-1949
TaiwanP1953-5Yuan-1949
TaiwanP1955-10Yuan-1949(1951)
TaiwanP1964-1Yuan-1954
TaiwanP1966-1Yuan-1954
TaiwanP1967-10Yuan-1954
TaiwanP1968-5Yuan-1955(1956)
TaiwanP1969-10Yuan-1960(1963)
TaiwanP1971a-1Yuan-1961
TaiwanP1972-5Yuan-1961
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| Why is a 5 dollar worth more than a 10 dollar in the same period sometimes? | | This is true for other Asian countries, where banknote denominations are 1, 5, 10, 50, 100... i.e. no banknote bears a denomination that starts with 2 or 25 (Netherlands has 25 Guilder notes, and the US has 20 Dollar notes). If you do the statistic, you will find out that the number of prefix-5 notes is 4 times less then the prefix-1 notes.
Expected number of prefix-1 notes = 0.2*0 + 0.2*1 + 0.2*2 + 0.2*3 + 0.2*4 = 2
Expected number of prefix-5 notes = 0.5*0 + 0.5*1 = 0.5
(Assumption: each cash transaction amount is equally likely to be any number) | |
| Why is revision so frequent? | | Sometimes for more sophisticated security features. In some other cases, it is because they ran out of serial numbers. For example TaiwanP1979a-10Yuan-1969(1970) and TaiwanP1979b-10Yuan-1969(1970) | |
| What does RMB stand for? | | Renminbi, or people's currency. RMB is used in mainland China | |
| Was there any monetary reform on RMB or TWD? | | Yes, in 1949, 40,000 old Taiwan Dollars = 1 new Taiwan Dollar; in 1955, 10,000 old RMB = 1 new RMB | |
| What if the proportion of banknote issuance of the three banks in Hong Kong and the two banks in Macau? | | Hong Kong Dollar
HSBC 64.4%
BOC 22.5%
SCB 13.1%
Macau Pataca
BNU 50%
BOC 50%
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| What is "hell banknote"? | | Chinses people burns these notes at ceremonies so that their ancestors can have some income in the afterlife. Chinese people also burn paper cars, paper house, or paper version of some other goods. Although some westerner collect them, most Chinese collector don't because they are intended for dead people. They probably have less value than monopoly money. | |
| Do I sell my collection? | | As of now, I do not wish to sell any part of my collection. I'm a collector, not a vendor. | |
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