100 Yuan Farmer's Bank of Chung-Chou, front proof

The Farmer's Bank of Chung-Chou was a provincial institution based in Henan, operating under Nationalist-aligned regional authority during a period when the central government's own currency was in catastrophic freefall. By 1948, hyperinflation had effectively destroyed the purchasing power of standard Fabi and the newly introduced Gold Yuan was already failing before its ink dried. Regional banks like this one continued issuing notes almost independently of any coherent monetary policy from Nanjing.

The "p" and "s" suffixes in the Pick reference indicate this survives as a front proof — a printer's pull taken before full production, typically on card or ungummed paper, sometimes with "SPECIMEN" perforation or overprint. Proofs from provincial Chinese issuers of this period are disproportionately common in collections relative to circulated examples, largely because they were sold off or distributed outside China as the Nationalist administration collapsed in 1949.