1903年汴洛铁路5%借款公债5枚，分二种，1905年钦差大臣杨签1枚及1907年钦差大臣李签4枚，皆500法郎，VF；1903 5% Gold Loan-Kaifong-Fou/Honan-Fou Rwy1903 5% Gold Loan Kaifong-Honan Railway, group of 5 bonds for 500 francs, 1 dated 1905 and signed by Imperial Inspector Yang and 4 dated 1907 signed by Imperial Inspeactor Li,The Chinese Gold Loan of 1903 was commonly known as the Pien LoRailway Loan of 1903. The original capital sum was Fr25,000,000 whichwas arranged into 50,000 bonds of Fr500 each.Subsequently the arrangement was augmented by a second issue ofbonds to the capital value of Fr16,000,000 and the total capital value wasthen Fr41,000,000. The loan was issued by authority of an Edict issuedby His Majesty the Emperor of China on 29th October 1903.The participating financial institutions which handled the arrangementsfor the issuance of bearer bonds against the loan were the Compagniede Generale de Chemins de Fer et de Tramways en Chine and theirbankers, Banque Belge pour l’Entranger in Shanghai and the Banquede Paris et des Pays-Bas in Paris and Amsterdam.Although the agreement was dated 1903, the bonds were subsequentlyoffered in two issues of 1905 and 1907 as shown in the table above.Coupons were payable on 1st January and 1st July each year.The purpose of the loan was for the construction of a railway betweenKaifong-fou and Honan-fou in the Province of Honan. The loan wassecured on the line and revenues of the Kaifong-fou/Honan-fou Railwayand by a direct obligation of the Chinese Imperial Government.It is interesting to note that the common title for this loan was the PienLo Railway Loan, as that title does not appear anywhere in the officialdocuments. The name Pien Lo is derived from a combination of twonames. The classical name for Kaifong-fou was “Pien-fang” and theclassical name for Honan-fou was “Lo-yang”. Therefore two elementswere extracted from these classical names to arrive at Pien Lo.Although the two issues relate to the same loan and the bond certificatesappear similar, there are in fact several differences in the text of thebonds between the 1905 and 1907 issues.(K140 and K141), very fine (5)
