Scottishmoney Posted April 29, 2006 Report Share Posted April 29, 2006 All received in change, the 2 Jiao(20 cents) and 2 Yuan are rather scarce as they have not been printed in about 5 years, but are still encountered in circulation. This was an attractive series that was issued beginning in 1980, and superseded by the rather unattractive but politically correct Chairman Mao series during the 1990's. In Guangzhou, I got mostly older 1 Yuan notes for some reason, and lots of the small change notes which I never encountered in Beijing and only rarely in Nangchang. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted April 29, 2006 Report Share Posted April 29, 2006 Ykra, the reason is very simple. Remember, if most of them are minted in coins, why should these notes still circulate? Although I can understand that farmers would desire to have their money in terms of paper form. While I am not too sure why you would receive more 1 yuan notes in Guangzhou, Beijing for sure would have replaced most of theirs by coins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted April 29, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 29, 2006 Actually I kept all the 1 Yuan coins I got in change, there were not that many of them. In Guangzhou I got more of the older "minorities" notes than the newer Chairman Mao notes that are all that circulate in Beijing. Also in Guangzhou I got more of the small change notes than coins. Perhaps there are regional preferences for monetary mediums of exchange. I got only coins and not small change notes in Beijing, mostly coins and only the small change notes if I asked for them in Nangchang, but in Guangzhou just about all I got were small change notes and not coins. My daughter just found 4 10 Yuan notes in the dryer this morning, apparently I had left them in my pants and never managed to spend them on coins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted April 29, 2006 Report Share Posted April 29, 2006 Very nice notes. I have a few of them in my collection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superbeast1098 Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 Same here. I have a couple of them in my collection as well.... Good looking notes though. KFC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccg Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 Interesting to hear about the regional stuff. Did you see alot of the cent-sized aluminium 1 jiao? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccg Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 And I didn't even know there was a 2 yuan in that series (never seen it before)! I've got to complete it one of these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted April 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 Interesting to hear about the regional stuff. Did you see alot of the cent-sized aluminium 1 jiao? Actually I only got 11 of the aluminium 1 Jiao coins, one I found on the street, the other 10 werein a mini roll I purchased from a cashier in a bakery in Nangchang. However about 4-5 years ago the Chinese mint started minting them in stainless steel, it is more durable, and works better in vending machines than the aluminium version. I have a whole stack of the steel variety. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 Indeed a 2 yuan banknote seems to be "scarce" but I do have one in my collection from my Chinese friend. I am actually more mystified over why you wouldn't be able to find much 1 yuan coins. Perhaps my friends went to large cities like Beijing and Shanghai and they got me almost a year run of 1994-2003 (if I am right) of 1 yuan, including a counterfeit 1 yuan coin Maybe counterfeit levels of 1 yuan got too high and they reverted back to banknotes? Or metal prices have skyrocketed every since and hence they are back to papers? As well as, here is a 1 jiao banknote and current 1 yuan banknote: 10 jiao 1 yuan Appearently different regions seem to prefer either the coins or the banknotes and hence they are still circulating... I gotta ask my Chinese friends if that is the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josemartins Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 ... Appearently different regions seem to prefer either the coins or the banknotes and hence they are still circulating... I gotta ask my Chinese friends if that is the case. Maybe, a friend that went to Xiamen early this year brought mainly "paper" (i don't remember anything with a "2" on it), another friend returned from Shanghai just a couple of weeks ago and he brought mainly coins (including a 2006 Yuan). Jose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted April 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 I have no doubts that the People's Bank would rather mint coins that last a while rather than print banknotes which keep having to be replaced, but I found that coins were more used in Beijing and Nangchang, while in Guangzhou bills were much more common. Sometimes it was not unusual to get one Jiao coin and a couple of Jiao notes in change in the same transaction. It did seem like the 2 denomination, whether it was Yuan or Jiao was not popular, I only managed to find one of each. Someone was telling me somewhere that the 20 Yuan note was only introduced as a denomination only in the last few years. As for coins most of what I got in circulation were dated either 2005 or 2006, and then the 1990's. I only got two coins dated in the 1980's in change the whole two weeks I was there, they were both 5 Fen coins dated 1986, the smallest denomination I managed to find in a transaction. In fact I saw them in a change drawer and asked the clerk if I could have the two of them instead of a Jiao note. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 I disagree. Metal prices have skyrocketed and because of the terrible rumors that 1 yuan coins are counterfeited to some extent, I am not too sure if the Chinese mints are interested in such. One excellent example was the Malaysian 1 ringgit coin and Malaysia decided to revert back to 1 ringgit banknote this year. There are also confirmation that China bought a fair bit of ex-European coinages at bulk to be used for her own coins. That's how desperate the situation is in China. If I am not mistaken, Beijing might be an extreme exception because of the oncoming Olympics. Because of the pride issue there, I am sure that the Chinese will try to circulate all of the newest "things", i.e. coins. Whatever is old will be sent off to the rural areas. Alternatively, old banknotes and coins are replaced more often in Beijing. Most definately an interesting story though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted April 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 Mentioning Beijing, they are modernising everything, it is amazing how much that city must have changed in the last 15 years. Even buildings built only 10 years ago are being torn down as "archaic". The one thing that they have not yet managed to do, and one which we fell victim to while we were there was somehow keeping the Mongolian desert sand from blowing into the city and coating everything with a light reddish brown layer of grit, making it very difficult to breathe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burks Posted May 1, 2006 Report Share Posted May 1, 2006 Scottish, is the first note posted the 2 Jiao or 2 Yuan? I want to get one of those! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 1, 2006 Report Share Posted May 1, 2006 From the back of a 1000 Cash local banknote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted May 1, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2006 Scottish, is the first note posted the 2 Jiao or 2 Yuan? I want to get one of those! It is a 2 Jiao, 20 Cents note. The last note is a 2 Yuan. Somewhere on a website they have to warn travellers to China about these small change notes and not to confuse them with Yuan notes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 2, 2006 Report Share Posted May 2, 2006 Look out when buying 'Rolex's' from street vendors in China. The Rolex's aren't the only things that aren't a good deal! I just got an email forwarded to me by my wife. A friend of hers knows I collect and was asking for her boss (friend of a friend thing going here) about something he got in change from a recent trip to China. He (knowingly) bought some knock-off rolex watches for 12 of his employees, and was to receive 20 yuan in change. It turns out that he was given a Belarus 20 Rublei note from year 2000 (currently 0.0009 US Cents - going for 25 cents on ebay!). He didn't catch it at the time because of the different versions of money being all around. Not too costly a mistake (a couple of bucks), but I imagine it is a profitable one for the street vendor over time. I can imagine there are a lot of people who would fall for something like that, especially if it was burried in other notes.... I remember I once got a bunch of philippine coins in change from a Taco Bell drive through one dark winter evening - but I thought that was cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted May 2, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 2, 2006 I just got an email forwarded to me by my wife. A friend of hers knows I collect and was asking for her boss (friend of a friend thing going here) about something he got in change from a recent trip to China. He (knowingly) bought some knock-off rolex watches for 12 of his employees, and was to receive 20 yuan in change. It turns out that he was given a Belarus 20 Rublei note from year 2000 (currently 0.0009 US Cents - going for 25 cents on ebay!). He didn't catch it at the time because of the different versions of money being all around. Not too costly a mistake (a couple of bucks), but I imagine it is a profitable one for the street vendor over time. I can imagine there are a lot of people who would fall for something like that, especially if it was burried in other notes.... I remember I once got a bunch of philippine coins in change from a Taco Bell drive through one dark winter evening - but I thought that was cool! There are money changers in some of the tourist areas with lines like "wanza shange ze money" that will give you mostly Viet-Namese dong etc. There really are only two versions of each denomination floating around, usually now only with the 1 Yuan note and the 100 yuan notes. It is always a good idea to be familiar with the currency of the country you are travelling in to avoid uncomfortable situations. Also never change money with people on the street. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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