5 Jiao / 50 Cents Bank of China

The Bank of China was reorganized from the old Ta-Ching Government Bank in 1912, but by 1917 it was already operating in a political environment that made note-issuing deeply precarious. Yuan Shikai had died in June 1916, leaving the central government in Beijing functionally bankrupt and the bank scrambling to maintain public confidence. Many Bank of China branches had suspended specie redemption the previous year — a move the bank's own Shanghai management famously defied by continuing to honor silver payments.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Peking handled this issue domestically, which distinguishes it from the foreign-printed Bank of China series contracted to American Banknote and others. Domestic production was cheaper but the intaglio quality is generally considered inferior.