10 Dollars

The Imperial Bank of China was established in 1897 as the first government-chartered bank in China, though it remained partly under foreign-influenced management and never achieved the dominance its founders envisioned. The Kiangnan Branch designation reflects the bank's regional structure — Kiangnan being the lower Yangtze delta region centered on Shanghai and Nanking, then the commercial and industrial heart of the empire.

ABNC handled most of the serious banknote commissions coming out of China in this period, and their work for the Imperial Bank is among the finer examples of the relationship. The plates were engraved in New York and the finished notes shipped to China for issue — a supply chain that made these notes vulnerable to disruption as the Qing dynasty's grip weakened after 1905.

The Imperial Bank was absorbed into the newly formed Bank of China following the 1911 revolution, ending its independent note-issuing function entirely.