I have 2-$50.00 bills issued on the Central Bank of China, shanghai in
1958 and stamped across the face of bills in gold lettering is
"wishing you a very merry christmas and a happy new year and signed ex
mayor cyrus h. polley a.c. the 2nd bill only has is signature. What
can you tell me about these bill or about mayor polley?

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Request for Question Clarification by scriptor-ga on 08 Sep 2006 09:02 PDT

Are you certain that the issue date of the bill is 1958? The Central
Bank of China, in mainland China, existed from 1924 to 1949 and was
re-established in 1961. There can't be a Central Bank of China bill
printed in Shanghai in 1958.

Scriptor

The only Cyrus H. Polley I found was manager of the Niagara Hotel in
Buffalo, NY, in the early years of the 20th century, but he was not
mayor of Buffalo.
Since his name appears in advertisements in 1902 and 1904 the Cornell
Alumni News, one could speculate if he was an alumnus, and speculate a
bit further if the "A.C" after his name meant "Alumnus Cornellienis". 
But that is a lot of speculation and certainly can't relate to 1958
bank notes.
There is also a Central Bank of China in Taiwan, but it was only
reestablished in 1961, as Scriptor mentions, and until 2000, the bank
notes there were issued by the Bank of Taiwan.

I found detailed information on Cyrus H. Polley, a major ("major" not
"mayor") during WWII in China.

As Scriptor is still waiting for your clarification I'd like to wait
another day before providing the link.

Is the bill similar to this one:
http://www.banknotes.com/cn329.htm ?

1) "mayor polley":

Cyrus H. Polley, "retired stockbroker and a former U.S. squash
champion", was born in 1901 and died in 1997. An obituary was
published in "The Buffalo News", March 26, 1997.
According to this obituary Polley "was made a lieutenant and later a
major in Gen. Claire Chennault's 14th Air Force, successor to the
Flying Tigers. Polley was in charge of special forces in Kunming,
China".

The entire obituary (373 words) as published in "The Buffalo News"
http://www.buffalonews.com/

is available in the "Buffalo News Archives"
http://www.buffalonews.com/newslibrary/advanced.asp

but not free of charge
https://verify1.newsbank.com/cgi-bin/ncom/BN/ec_paymentoptions

However, the obituary is also available here:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/message/an/localities.northam.usa.states.newjersey.counties.ocean/955
i.e. choose "Thread (expanded)", i.e. not"Thread (collapsed)" or "Date
(collapsed)".

He was born "3 May 1901":
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Search/ssdi/individual_record.asp?recid=164142850

It is not possible for me to prove that this "Cyrus H. Polley" is the
one you are trying to identify. But, currently, I see no reason to
question the view that they are identical.

More on "14th Air Force" and "Claire Lee Chennault":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Air_Force
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Chennault


2) "bill"

As already mentioned by Scriptor and Myoarin these notes could not
have been printed in 1958.
Could you tell us the currency? Could the date be 1938, i.e, not 19 5 8?
It is, of course, possible that Polley being in the finance business
decided to print his own special New Year's Card for 1958 (Myoarin,
what do you think?).
If, however, Polley did use genuine Chinese notes it is possible that
they were not valid (due to civil war and change of government) when
Polley signed them.

Fp,
What do I think?  Wow! Congratulations, looks like the son of a hotel
manager, and the Chinese connection is very supportive.  How'd ya find
him?
Reproducing a half way convincing bank note in those days with 1938
changed to 1958 would have required photo-engraving or photo-offset
(less convincing), I believe, and a bit showy/expensive, but if CHP
had them overprinted in "gold", it sounds like he was, not
inappropriate for an old Flying Tiger.
If "major" is correct, which seems likely, he probably had them made
to send to all his old buddies.

We need to see a picture to speculate further.  The information in the
question seems inaccurate; I don't believe the Central Bank of China
bills said "dollar" or had a dollar sign, so the date may have also
been misread.  If this were so, it would have been easy for CHP to
have had his hoard of worthless bank notes overprinted.  (This is my
bet.)

I hope Rose01-ga will come back and give us a picture or a more
detailed description of the notes.

Cheers, Myoarin

Thank you, Myoarin!

How did I find him? I tried to identify him by using
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=ssdi/search_ssdi.asp&clear_form=true

By going to
http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/database/ss/default.asp
(or http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/ )
I could verify that his initial was indeed "H.".

I finally found his obituary by including "Point Pleasant Beach" as search term.

Fp, you must be a brother in soul of Scriptor.
Myoarin

Hi, I have a central bank of China bill as well from 1930 with the
number 10 in the corners and it has "ten cutoms gold units" written on
it, and I was wondering if it was worth anything!

Bambi,
Probably not worth much, but you'll need to post your own question to
get a Researcher to try to answer.