Catalog
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| Issuer | Bank of Japan |
|---|---|
| Year | 1946 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Portrait of Wake no Kiyomaro in traditional court attire at right, set against an intricate guilloche underprint with a large numeral '10' medallion at left. A red official seal appears in the lower centre, with the imperial chrysanthemum crest at upper centre, and a small rectangular adhesive validation stamp affixed at upper right. The vertical inscriptions in kanji identify the Bank of Japan and the denomination, with serial number and block letter printed in the upper and lower margins. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 10 496464 {85} 10 券行銀本日 拾 日 10 圓 本 銀 行 10 {85} 496464 10 造幣局刷印閣内 (Translation: Bank of Japan note Ten yen Bank of Japan Printed by the Cabinet Printing Bureau) |
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| Comments |
Japan's postwar currency reform of March 1946 moved fast. The government froze bank accounts and imposed strict withdrawal limits, forcing the Bank of Japan to release new low-denomination notes before adequate printing capacity could produce them in sufficient volume. The solution was pragmatic and ugly: existing 10 Yen wartime notes were overprinted with adhesive stamps to validate them under the new regime, distinguishing "new yen" from the old frozen currency.
The stamps were applied by hand at financial institutions, and adhesion quality varies considerably — detached or partially lifted stamps are among the most common condition problems with this type. Pick 79 is the adhesive-stamp variant specifically; the underlying note it validates dates from an earlier wartime printing run by the same Cabinet bureau.