50 Chiao / 500 Cents

The Bank of the Eastern Three Provinces — established to serve Manchuria's three northeastern provinces of Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang — was a regional institution whose notes circulated in an area simultaneously coveted by Russian commercial interests, Japanese military planners, and competing Chinese warlord factions. The dual denomination printed on this note, expressing value in both Chiao and Cents, reflects the monetary confusion of early Republican Manchuria, where multiple units, currencies, and exchange rates operated in parallel.

The bank's notes from this period are scarce survivors. The institutional turbulence of the warlord era and Japan's eventual seizure of Manchuria in 1931 ensured that most surviving paper from these early provincial banks was either destroyed or lost.