5 Yen

The Bank of Chosen — Chōsen Ginkō in Japanese — was established by the Japanese colonial government in 1909, two years before this note was issued and one year before Korea was formally annexed. The bank functioned as both a central bank for the peninsula and a quasi-colonial financing vehicle, extending operations into Manchuria and parts of northern China well beyond its nominal mandate.

Pick 18 belongs to an early series printed before the bank had settled into the longer production runs of the 1910s and 1920s. Survivor rates from this period are low — not because of wartime destruction, but because heavy commercial use in a rapidly monetizing economy wore notes out fast.