500 Yuan Bank of Pei Hai

The Bank of Pei Hai (北海银行) was the currency-issuing arm of the Shandong-Jiangsu border base area under Communist Party control, established in 1938 as one of several regional banks operating behind Japanese lines. By 1948, the institution was in the process of being absorbed into the newly forming People's Bank of China — founded that December — making late-dated Pei Hai notes transitional issues in the strictest sense, printed while the institution was already being wound down.

High-denomination notes from this series are frequently encountered with significant foxing and paper weakness, a consequence of wartime material shortages that affected paper stock quality across nearly all Communist base area issues of the period.