10 Yen in Gold

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.