1 Yuan

The Bank of Taiwan's 1949 small-denomination notes were issued under acute political pressure, as the Nationalist government completed its retreat from the mainland. Taiwan had already undergone one catastrophic currency reform in June 1949 — the New Taiwan Dollar replaced the Old Taiwan Dollar at a rate of 40,000 to 1 — and these notes were part of the stabilization series that followed. The reform was backed by a gold reserve transferred from Shanghai, a detail that gave the new currency at least nominal credibility where its predecessor had none.

P#140 is among the more commonly encountered notes from this issue, having circulated widely through a period of genuine economic reconstruction.