50 Cents

The Central Reserve Bank of China was a Japanese-sponsored institution established in Nanjing in 1941 under the Wang Jingwei collaborationist regime — which creates an immediate dating puzzle. Notes carrying a 1940 date were issued under the authority of a bank that did not formally exist until the following year, reflecting the transitional bureaucratic chaos as Japanese occupation forces displaced the existing Chiang Kai-shek currency infrastructure across occupied territories.

The J-prefix in the Pick reference denotes Japanese occupation issues, a cataloguing distinction that matters for provenance. Circulated alongside — and deliberately designed to displace — Nationalist fabi currency, these lower denominations bore the heaviest use and survival rates for well-worn examples are high.