10 Cents

The Board of Commissioners of Currency, Malaya was established in 1897 as a joint currency authority for the Federated and Unfederated Malay States, the Straits Settlements, and later Brunei — an unusually broad colonial monetary union. This 1940 issue was printed locally by the Survey Department of the Federated Malay States in Kuala Lumpur, making it one of the few British colonial small-denomination notes produced entirely within the territory it served.

The timing matters. These notes were already in circulation when Japanese forces invaded in December 1941. Many were destroyed by the British under a denial policy to prevent currency falling into enemy hands, and the Japanese subsequently issued their own "banana money" occupation scrip. Surviving pre-war Board issues from 1940 are genuinely scarce as a direct result.