10 Yuan Bank of China

The Bank of China's 1937 series was printed by De La Rue in London well before the Japanese occupation of Shanghai disrupted the bank's operations, but the notes themselves were issued into a currency market already under severe pressure. The Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in July 1937, and circulation of this issue occurred against a backdrop of rapid monetary fragmentation as Japanese military authorities began introducing competing puppet-bank currencies across occupied territories.

De La Rue's contract work for Chinese banks during this period used intaglio printing of notably high quality — one reason these notes were difficult to counterfeit despite the chaos of wartime distribution.