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Shanghai 1947 – when US¢45 = C$6,900

Posted: January 29th, 2016 | 1 Comment »

This letter posted from the offices of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration offices (in the Embankment Building (below) down on Soochow Creek) to St Louis, Missouri in 1947 shows you just how crazy inflation got in post-WW2, Civil War China. What should have cost US¢45 cost 6,900 Chinese dollars. fortunately the Chinese post office issues stamps in C$3,000 and 1,000 denominations to help….

The_Ogden_Standard_Examiner_Sun__Nov_2__1947_

From here….

index

to here…for C$6,900!

Star-Times Building [St. Louis Star-Times]. Twelfth Street and Delmar Avenue. Photograph by Joseph Hampel, 1946. Joseph Hampel Album. p. 19a. Acc. # 1998.94. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collections. NS 23714. Scan © 2007, Missouri Historical Society. {"subject_uri":"http://collections.mohistory.org/resource/18482","local_id":"34632"}

Star-Times Building [St. Louis Star-Times]. Twelfth Street and Delmar Avenue. Photograph by Joseph Hampel, 1946. Joseph Hampel Album. p. 19a. Acc. # 1998.94. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collections. NS 23714. Scan © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.
{“subject_uri”:”http://collections.mohistory.org/resource/18482″,”local_id”:”34632″}

One Comment on “Shanghai 1947 – when US¢45 = C$6,900”

  1. 1 Kathleen Blair said at 1:06 pm on July 19th, 2016:

    My parents worked for UNRRA/NAEC in Shanghai at the Embankment Building from 1946 until 1949.

    Would you please be willing to correspond with me about UNRRA and China in that time period? I don’t know very much about their lives then and I’d like to know more. They are both deceased now.

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