4 Coppers Ho Pei Metropolitan Bank

The Ho Pei Metropolitan Bank (河北銀錢局) was a provincial institution operating under Japanese occupation authorities in Hebei — this note dates to 1938, the year after the fall of Beijing, when puppet financial structures were being rapidly assembled to stabilize commerce in occupied north China. The Beijing Printing Bureau, already under Japanese administrative control by that point, handled production locally rather than through the better-equipped facilities in Shanghai or Tokyo.

Small-denomination copper-unit notes like this one circulated heavily at street level and wore out fast. Survivors in any condition above heavy use are uncommon for exactly that reason.