10 Won

The Bank of Joseon was the colonial-era central bank established under Japanese administration in 1909, and it continued issuing notes under its own name into the early years of the divided peninsula. This 10 Won belongs to a series printed in April 1945 — the final months of Japanese rule — but not released until 1949, by which point Korea had been liberated and partitioned. The South Korean authorities had little else to fall back on immediately, and inherited colonial-era printing stock filled the gap.

The four-year lag between printing date and issue year is the essential fact here. Pick lists it under the Bank of Joseon's post-liberation South Korean issues, but the paper itself predates the Republic of Korea's founding by months.