1/4 Yen - Meiji Copper Pattern

This pattern was produced at the Osaka Mint in 1870 during the foundational reorganization of Japan's currency system under the New Currency Act of that same year — the legislation that formally abolished the chaotic feudal coinage and established a decimal yen-based system. The copper quarter-yen denomination was ultimately never adopted for circulation; the fractional coinage that entered production settled on different denominational divisions.

The Osaka Mint had only opened in April 1871, making 1870-dated copper patterns among the earliest experimental strikes from that facility, produced while British engineers from the Hong Kong Mint were still overseeing installation of the machinery.