5 Jiao / 50 Cents Bank of China

The Bank of China was formally reorganized in February 1912 from the old Qing dynasty's Da-Qing Bank, and by 1914 it had been designated one of the two central government banks under the Republic — a status that made its notes the closest thing China had to an official national currency. That authority was precarious in practice. Regional militarists, competing currency systems, and inconsistent government backing meant public confidence in Bank of China notes varied enormously by province.

The 50-cent denomination sat in a fractional tier that saw heavy day-to-day use, which makes genuinely uncirculated examples harder to find than the larger denominations from the same issue.