1 Jiao / 10 Cents Bank of China

The Bank of China's 1918 fractional issues were a direct response to a chronic shortage of small coinage across Chinese treaty ports, where foreign concessions, merchant guilds, and provincial banks were each producing their own improvised substitutes. A nationally issued paper fractional note was the central bank's attempt to impose some order on that chaos — with limited success outside major urban centers.

The American Bank Note Company held the contract for much of the Bank of China's printed output during this period. ABNC's New York plant produced consistently high intaglio quality, and the security features on this series were considerably more sophisticated than anything being printed domestically at the time.

Pick lists multiple signature and overprint varieties for P#48, so authentication of the specific issuing branch overprint is worth attention before attribution.