Catalog
10 Yen in Gold
| Issuer | Bank of Taiwan |
|---|---|
| Year | 1906 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse lettering | 10 圓拾 拾 行銀灣臺 社會式株 金 拾 圓 臺 灣 銀 行 TAIW AN Bᴷ Lᴰ (Translation: Ten Yen The Bank of Taiwan Co., Ltd. Ten Yen in Gold Bank of Taiwan) |
| Reverse description | Printed in purple, the reverse carries the bold English title TEN YEN IN GOLD at the top in ornate lettering, with a symmetrical central design of two large guilloche rosette panels bearing the Chinese characters 拾 (ten). The bank's promise inscription THE BANK OF TAIWAN Promises to pay the bearer on demand TEN YEN IN GOLD is set in two registers between the rosettes and the lower margin. A block of Chinese legal text occupies the upper portion, and the printer's imprint of the Imperial Japanese Government Printing Bureau appears at the foot. |
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| Comments |
The Bank of Taiwan was established in 1899 primarily as an instrument of Japanese colonial finance, not merely a local depository. Its notes were legal tender in Taiwan but also circulated in southern China and parts of Southeast Asia, where Japanese commercial interests were expanding aggressively in the early twentieth century — an unusual dual-circulation mandate that shaped the denomination structure of this entire series.
The "in Gold" designation was more than nominal. The notes were theoretically redeemable in gold coin, a convertibility promise the bank maintained until the financial pressures of the 1920s made it untenable. The Printing Bureau of the Imperial Japanese Government handled production for virtually all Japanese colonial currency of this period, centralizing quality control across a sprawling monetary network.