10 Sen

The Bank of Chōsen — technically a private institution but operating entirely as a colonial monetary arm of the Japanese Government-General — issued this sen-denomination note during a period when small-change coinage was chronically scarce across the peninsula. Japan had absorbed Korea in 1910, and the pre-existing Daehan monetary infrastructure was being systematically dismantled and replaced. Low-denomination paper filled the gap that copper hadn't.

Printing at the Government-General Bureau in Seoul rather than through a Japanese metropolitan press was deliberate policy: it kept production costs down and asserted local administrative control over colonial currency supply. The Bank of Chōsen's sen notes from this period are frequently found with heavy soil and fold damage — they circulated hard among a population with few alternatives for small transactions.