50 Cents

The British North Borneo Company retained its chartered authority to issue currency long after most private colonial trading companies had lost theirs — a quirk of British imperial administration that persisted until the Japanese occupation of 1941–42. This 1938 fractional note belongs to a late peacetime series; within three years, Japanese Military Administration currency would displace all Company paper across the territory.

Most surviving examples of this series show pronounced wear along vertical fold lines, the result of tight folding habits common in local small-denomination handling. The 1938 date places this issue in the Company's final undisturbed fiscal period.