Hong Kong 1 cent note!!!

This must be the lowest denomination note ever issued, surely? A HK dollar in this era (late 80s/early 90s) was worth around 10 British pence so this would have had a value of 0.1p or almost 2 US cents!



Can anyone top this?

 

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Oh, I almost forgot to mention that this is printed on one side only!

 

According to this site, "Tatarstan issued a series of currency checks without any denomination printed." and also mentions a "Fiji 1 penny, issued in 1942. The old penny, being 1/240 of a pound, is a lower denomination than other fractional notes based on 1/100th of a basic monetary unit."

 

During the US Civil War, weren't there some fractional currency notes with a value less than 1 cent?

 

I guess they were trying to save on printing costs.....LOL

 

i seem to remember that the guiness book of records stated that the indonesian 1 sen bank note was the smallest denomination ever.

 

Those were the lowest denomination notes at the time they were printed and still being circulated - I think I read that there were a hundred of them to a penny.

The lowest denomination notes I have used are 1 Jiao notes issued in China that were still being used when I was there in 2006, they were then worth about 1.4 US cents. Here is a 2 Jiao that I saved for my collection, this would be worth about 3 cents:



The Chinese government is actively trying to get people to use coins instead of notes, but I noticed that in Guangzhou they seemed to prefer the notes - even if they were old and tattered. In Beijing I never got one of the small change notes.

 

On 17 October 1983, the Hong Kong dollar was pegged at 7.8 HK dollars per US dollar or 12.8 US cents per
Hong Kong dollar. Thus a one cent note was worth .128 US cents.

 

China issued a "half cent" note in 1938.

You can see an image of it at this Chinese site.

There are three notes in this series. The top image (green) is the "half cent" (ban fen) note. The second image (brown) is the "one cent" (yi fen) note. The third image (red) is the "five cent" (wu fen) note.

It would have taken 200 of these "1/2 cent" notes to equal a "one dollar" (one yuan) note.

Also, inflation was horrendous at that time in China so the purchasing power of the "half cent" note must have been incredibly miniscule.

For those interested, I provide information concerning the vignette here.

Gary