King William I, founder of the NHM. Portrait by Jan Willem Pieneman, 1832.

Due to the complete political, social and economic chaos prevalent in China in the early part of the 20th century, there was no central authority whatsoever, let alone a central bank. Various foreign banks active in China stepped in and issued their own money in an attempt to fill this monetary void. One of these was the Netherlands Trading Society (NTS) which had opened an agency in Shanghai in 1903. From 1909 to 1946, the so-called Shanghai dollars were put into circulation by NTS, in denominations of 5, 10, 50 and 100 dollars.