10 Yen / Ien'

Japan's wartime industrial boom created genuine inflationary pressure by 1918, and the government — not the Bank of Japan — remained the direct issuer of low-denomination notes well into the twentieth century under the Meiji-era framework that had never fully transferred note-issuing authority to the central bank. P#18 belongs to that tradition.

The Cabinet Printing Bureau (大蔵省印刷局) had been producing government securities and currency since the 1870s, and by this period had developed considerable in-house intaglio capability, reducing Japan's earlier dependence on foreign printers. Cotton substrate was standard for the Bureau's output at this date.