US$ to C$ & $Mex Rates China 1920s/1930s

I get asked a lot how to work out exchange rates between the US$, the Nationalist Chinese $ and the widely used (particularly in Shanghai $Mex – the Mexican silver dollar). Below is a handy guide provided to me by Maggie Topkis from some work she did a while back…and my thanks to Maggie for this. I’ll poist it here as an aide-memoir for the next time someone asks this question…

“In the ordinary course of things, prior to WWII, the exchange rate ran roughly one US dollar to two Chinese or Mex dollars. For a few years following WWI, the exchange rate tipped significantly; by 1920 1 US dollar bought about 80 cents Chinese/Mex. This, in theory, was a function of trade imbalances arising from the war (hmmm…..rubber? I have some recollection that China was just exporting rubber like crazy), but the more typical relationship between the two dollars righted itself fairly quickly and (I am guessing here) held steady until perhaps 1937.”