1 Yuan Kwangtung Provincial Bank

Kwangtung Provincial Bank had been issuing currency for decades by 1949, but this note belongs to its final chapter. As the People's Liberation Army swept south through 1949, Guangdong fell in October. Notes issued that year had an extremely short window of legitimate circulation before Nationalist-era provincial paper became worthless overnight.

Chung Hwa Book Co. printed extensively for both Nationalist government banks and provincial issuers throughout the 1940s — a commercial printer rather than a security specialist, which shows in the relatively modest production values of late-series issues like this one.