20 Yuan Bank of Central China

The Bank of Central China (中国农民银行 is not the issuer here — this was a Communist Party-aligned regional bank operating in the Liberated Areas of central China during the final years of the Japanese occupation and into the civil war period. These regional banks issued notes partly to fund military operations and partly to displace competing currencies — Japanese military yen, puppet regime scrip, and Nationalist fabi — from circulation in areas as they changed hands.

Pick S3370 falls within a series where printing quality and paper stock varied considerably depending on what was available in the field. Condition issues on survivors often trace directly to wartime storage rather than heavy use.