50 Yuan Bank of Communications

The Bank of Communications was established in 1908 under the Qing dynasty to manage railway and postal revenues, making it one of only two banks — alongside the Bank of China — authorized to issue national currency in the early Republic period. This 1914 series was printed by the American Bank Note Company in New York, a common arrangement for Chinese issuers of the period who relied on foreign security printers to produce notes difficult to counterfeit domestically.

Regional overprints were applied to many notes in this series for use in specific provinces, and the same base plates were pressed into service across multiple denominations and years. Unsigned or unissued remainders of high-denomination notes from this series survive in greater numbers than genuinely circulated examples.