Last updated: September 2026

What is the oldest banknote still in existence?

The oldest surviving banknotes are Chinese notes of the Yuan dynasty, issued from 1260 under Kublai Khan. The National Museum of China holds a Zhongtong yuanbao jiaochao measuring 26.4 by 21.1 centimetres. No notes are known to survive from the Song dynasty, where paper money began.

That last sentence is the one most articles get wrong. Paper money started in Sichuan in the 10th century and was nationalised by the Song state in the 1020s, but the notes themselves are gone. Guinness World Records, which recognises the Sichuan issue as the first paper money, records that no Song specimens survive, though a printing plate dated to around 1023 has been found (Guinness World Records). A Jin dynasty printing plate dated 1214 survives as well. For the first two centuries of paper money, the tooling outlasted the product.

The reason is simple enough. These were working currencies, designed to be spent, worn out and called in on a fixed cycle. Nobody set one aside as an artefact. What survives tends to have survived by accident, walled up, packed inside something, or buried, which is why a museum case is the only place you will see one. The full story of those issues is on the first paper money in China.

The oldest surviving banknotes, ranked

Ranked by date of issue, with the institution that holds each one. Note that two entries are printing plates rather than notes, which matters because plates are often cited loosely as "the oldest paper money" when no note from that issue exists.

Why the Ming 1 guan is the famous one

Because it is the early note the great museums actually hold, display and photograph. The British Museum's example, registration number CIB,EA.260, carries a production date of 1375 and measures 340 by 218 millimetres, and it was chosen as object number 72 in A History of the World in 100 Objects.

It is worth being careful with the superlative. Plenty of write-ups call the Ming 1 guan the world's oldest surviving banknote. With a Yuan note in the National Museum of China (National Museum of China), that claim does not hold, and no institution makes it. The accurate description is that the Ming 1 guan is the best-known early survivor and the oldest paper money most people will ever see in person.

Its fame is also a matter of physical presence. At roughly 340 by 220 millimetres it is the largest bill ever produced in China, a record of size rather than face value, which belongs to the highest denomination banknote ever printed. It is printed on dark mulberry-fibre paper and it carries an anti-counterfeiting notice offering a reward of 250 liang of silver plus the forger's belongings for information leading to an arrest. The Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection holds seven Ming kuan notes, one of which records the same warning (Smithsonian National Museum of American History). Because so many institutions hold one, it is also the early note most often reproduced, which is covered on our page about replicas and novelty notes.

What is the oldest surviving European banknote?

A Stockholms Banco credit note from the 1660s. Sweden's first banknotes were issued in 1661, and Sveriges Riksbank illustrates a surviving example made out for 100 daler silver coin, measuring roughly 155 by 195 millimetres.

England's oldest surviving note comes a generation later. The Bank of England Museum's earliest banknote is a handwritten fragment dated 18 June 1697, made out for 22 pounds, which the museum describes as one of the earliest known examples of a running cash note issued by a Bank of England cashier (Bank of England Museum). A complete note from 1699, for £150 8s 8d, survives in the same collection with a printed Britannia medallion and handwritten details.

Both are reminders that early European notes were written for the exact sum deposited, so each one is effectively unique. That is part of why so few survive: there was no standard denomination to hoard, and a note that had been paid out was simply cancelled. The wider story is on Europe's first banknotes.

What is the oldest banknote a bank will still honour?

United States notes lead: all US currency issued since 1861 remains valid and redeemable at full face value. Australia honours every banknote it has ever issued, back to the ten shilling note of 1913. The Bank of England sets no deadline at all on its withdrawn notes.

Sources for the table, in order: the US Currency Education Program; the Reserve Bank of Australia and its banknote history, which dates the first Australian note, a ten shilling, to 1 May 1913; the Bank of England and its withdrawn banknotes list; the Swiss National Bank; the Bank of Canada; and the European Central Bank.

Oldest surviving is not the same as oldest still valid

A note can be in three quite different states, and the words get used interchangeably when they should not be. It can still be legal tender, it can be exchangeable at its issuer without being legal tender, or it can be neither and exist purely as a collectible.

Canada draws the same line from the other side. The $1, $2, $25, $500 and $1,000 of every Bank of Canada series stopped being legal tender on 1 January 2021, but the Bank is explicit that they still retain their face value and can be redeemed, and it adds that the $25 and $500 can be worth significantly more than face value to collectors. Switzerland shows the harder version of the rule: the sixth series onward can be exchanged for an unlimited period at full nominal value, but earlier series passed their deadline and can no longer be exchanged.

Why does this matter to a collector? Because redemption sets a floor. A note the issuer will still honour cannot trade below its face value, which changes how you think about common examples of a withdrawn series. A note nobody will redeem is priced entirely by scarcity, condition and story, which is the situation for almost every note on this page's first table and for demonetized currencies generally, covered on what is demonetization.

Which old banknotes can you actually own?

Nothing from the first table. Yuan and Ming notes are institutional objects, 17th-century European notes effectively never reach the market, and the Song notes everyone asks about do not exist. Realistic collecting starts in the 18th century and becomes straightforward in the 19th.

The affordable end of genuinely old paper is better than most people expect. French assignats from 1789 to 1796 were printed in the billions and survive in quantity, so a real 230-year-old note is within reach. Colonial and early republic American issues, 19th-century private and provincial bank notes, and the withdrawn 20th-century series of most countries are all collectable in good grades.

Two practical warnings. First, the Ming 1 guan is among the most reproduced objects in numismatics, and decorative copies are sold in volume; authentic examples live in museums, not in inventory. Second, age alone does not set value. Condition, scarcity and demand do, which is why an 1870s note in crisp condition can outrank a much older tired one. See what determines banknote value and how to store banknotes before you buy, and browse current stock in banknotes by country or the China section.

Planet Banknote is a family-owned dealership in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 2021. Every note is sourced direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors, inspected through our Planet Banknote Verified process, and ships with a free Certificate of Authenticity. US orders ship free via USPS Priority, and every order includes a free bonus gift.