Archives International Auctions (based in Fort Lee, N.J.) will offer over 500 lots of rare Chinese and Asian banknotes, plus scripophily rarities (stocks and bonds), in a public auction slated for Sunday, May 24th. The event will be held at the offices of Kelleher & Rogers, Fine Asian Auctions Ltd., in Hong Kong.
Headlining the auction will be an amazing family archive of Chinese and Asian banknotes from Alexander I. Pogrebetsky (1891-1952). The notes are part of Pogrebetsky’s reference collection, gathered over a 30-year period, between 1918 and 1948, when Pogrebetsky lived and worked in China and was involved in finance and banking there.
Alexander Pogrebetsky was an economist and financier by trade. After the Russian Revolution and the communist takeover there, he relocated to Harbin, China around 1922, where he became Head of the Board for the Chinese Eastern Railway Co., which ran from Vladivostok to Harbin. After 1935 he left Harbin and relocated to Tientsin, China, where he co-owned a private bank.
Highlights from the collection include a Ming Dynasty 1 Kuan banknote, the earliest form of paper money available in the world.
