10 Yuan Bank of China

The Bank of China's 1919 issues emerged from a politically awkward moment: the bank had been reorganized in 1912 as the Republic of China's central institution, yet by 1919 it was operating amid warlord fragmentation and competing regional authorities that made national monetary policy largely theoretical. Notes of this series were issued across multiple branches — Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, Harbin among them — each branch controlling its own overprints, making Pick 60 a broad designation that covers considerable variation in actual issuing office.

Branch-specific examples command meaningfully different premiums. A Harbin-issued note tells a different circulation story than a Shanghai one.