50 Yuan Bank of Central China

The Bank of Central China was a Japanese puppet institution established in 1938 to manage currency in the occupied Yangtze River valley. By 1945, the entire puppet banking structure was collapsing in step with Japan's military position — notes issued this late in the war circulated into a monetary environment of extreme inflation and public distrust, with many residents preferring commodity barter or Nationalist-area currency at significant premium.

The S-prefix Pick number places this firmly in the specialized rather than mainstream catalog — a classification that sometimes undersells circulation reality. These notes moved through markets in Wuhan, Nanjing, and surrounding occupied territories whether anyone trusted them or not.