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10 Yen
| Issuer | Bank of Japan |
|---|---|
| Year | 1885 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 10 Yen (10 JPY) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | A radiant sun vignette occupies the upper portion of the note, with an elaborate guilloche panel bearing the denomination at centre. At right, the Shinto deity Daikoku is rendered in detailed intaglio, seated atop two bales of rice, holding a mallet in his right hand and a treasure sack over his left shoulder, with three mice at his feet. Serial numbers and Bank of Japan convertible silver note inscriptions in Japanese appear in the margins. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is dominated by a large green guilloche medallion at centre, incorporating the denomination and a legal warning text regarding counterfeiting. A red seal of the Director of the Treasury is applied at lower left, with bilingual Japanese and Western numerals denoting the value flanking the central vignette. |
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| Comments |
This was among the first notes issued under the Convertible Banknote Regulations of 1885, which obligated the Bank of Japan to redeem its paper in silver on demand — a system designed to stabilize a currency that had been badly damaged by the inflationary government notes of the early Meiji period. The Bank of Japan had only been established in 1882, and these first convertible issues were a deliberate assertion of institutional credibility.
The Printing Bureau had been producing government documents and stamps since 1871, and by 1885 was capable of reasonably sophisticated intaglio work without foreign contract printers — a point of some national pride at the time.