10 Yuan Central Bank of China

The Central Bank of China placed substantial printing orders with American Bank Note Company through the late 1930s, a relationship that predated the Japanese invasion but became operationally complicated after 1937 when the Nationalist government began its wartime retreat inland. Notes of this series entered circulation precisely as Shanghai fell, meaning many moved west with the refugee economy rather than through normal banking channels.

ABNC's intaglio work on this series is technically accomplished — the firm had decades of Chinese government contracts behind it by this point. Overprints and chop marks on surviving examples often tell a more specific geographic story than the note itself does.