1 Cent Chekiang Provincial Bank

Chekiang (Zhejiang) Province had its own note-issuing bank operating into the late 1930s, but by 1938 Japanese military advances had severely disrupted provincial banking across eastern China. Notes of this period from regional Chinese banks were often issued in fractional denominations specifically to address copper coin shortages — metal coinage was being hoarded or melted, and the smallest transactions had no reliable medium.

The P#S880 series is among the more elusive of the wartime provincial fractionals. Most small-denomination paper from this period circulated to destruction.