10 Sen - Taishō Pattern

Pattern coins from the Taishō period occupy an awkward place in Japanese numismatic history — produced internally by the Osaka Mint as proposed design studies, most never advanced beyond small trial strikings and were never submitted for official approval. The 1918 silver 10 Sen pattern falls into this category, emerging at a moment when the mint was under pressure to modernize coin designs following Taishō's accession in 1912 but facing bureaucratic inertia that repeatedly delayed any substantive change to circulating types.

Survivors in institutional or private hands are almost invariably traceable to mint disposal records from the 1920s and 1930s.