For more information on the sale of this collection, contact Ronald Gillio, 1103 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101.
More than 30 years after his death, a portion of the paper money collection formed by the famous collector and numismatic writer, Eduard Kann, has been found. In February 1995, New York coin dealer, Andy Lustig, purchased from a used bookstore in Los Angeles a book titled "Paper Money in China" by Eduard Kann. The book is a privately bound collection of five of Kann's articles on Chinese paper money published in the Central Bank of China Bulletin during 1936-1937. The book also contained about 200 Chinese notes, attached to pages with stamp hinges.
Eduard Kann was born in Austria in 1880 and went to China in 1902 apparently to work in a branch of the Russo-Chinese bank. He was stationed in Manchuria for many years, but around the time of the Russian revolution moved Tlentsin where he became manager of the Commercial Guarantee Bank of Chihli. In 1921 he became general manager of the Chinese -American Bank of Commerce, and his signature may be found on some of its notes. From 1925 to 1949 he operated a bullion and exchange brokerage business at Shanghai(though he was imprisoned for a time by the Japanese during 1941-42). From 1949 till his death in 1962 he lived in Hollywood, California.
Though he authored numerous articles, Kanns most important works are his books "Currencies of China" (1926; 2nd edition 1927; reprint 1978) and "Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Coins" (1954, reprint 1966), and his series of articles "History Of Chinese Paper Money" (also titled "Paper Money in Modern China" and "Commentaries on Chinese Paper Money" ) published in 46 installments in the Far Eastern Economic Review during1957-1958. According to letters written by Kann, he originally planned to publish this as a book, but those plans apparently fell through, and it was published as a series. Shortly before his death he planned to turn over the manuscript for this book to Dr. Walter Loeb, an active paper money collector and writer, for publication possibly by the newly organized International Bank Note Society. IBNS never published the work and Loeb died in 1969.
As noted in the first issue of East Asia Journal (Ft. Wayne, IN 1982), Kanns coin collection was sold in three famous sales by Quality Sales Corporation (Kreisberg & Cohen) during 1971-1972. However, Kann had actually sold the collection to a California doctor in the 1950s and it was this doctor, who had kept the collection intact and added a few items to it, who consigned it to Quality Sales. Kann's collection of sycee ingots, the most comprehensive in existence at that time, was sold by private treaty in 1978 to the British Museum. His collection of Chinese stamps was sold at auction in February 1963 by stamp dealer J. R. Hughes. But the status of his paper money collection remained a mystery until now. Kann mentioned in a 1957 letter that his proposed book on Chinese paper money recorded 1, 800 notes, all of which he had personally seen. From his descriptions of the notes, he obviously possessed many of them as well. Whether his Collection consisted of the 200 notes found or whether there is another collection of Kann notes waiting to be discovered, is unknown.
Among the notes in the book discovered by Lustig was a previously unknown note on the Russo-Asiatic Bank. The one dollar note, from the Hankow branch, dated 8 December 1917, has the title "RUSSO-ASIATIC BANK" overprinted on a note of the Russo-chinese Bank. The basic note is listed in Pick as S512 (dated 6 June 1914 with Hankow overprinted on Tientsin), but the overprint is a new discovery. This basic note is a bit odd. According to Kann, who was manager of various branches of the Russo-Asiatic Bank at that time, the bank changed its name from Russo-Chinese Bank to Russo-Asiatic Bank in July 1910 as the result of a merger with another bank. Pick S512 with date of 1914 should not exist at all.
A photograph of the newly discovered note appears on the front page of the March 1995 issue of Bank Note Reporter and in a March 13 Coin World article. Interestingly the serial number of the newly discovered note is very close to the serial number on the 1914 dated note without the overprint. When the bank closed in 1926, the Hankow branch had the smallest circulation outstanding of all the bank's China branches - only S879 (all in notes in dollar denominations).
Originally published in the JEAN in 1995