Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
20 Gold Yen
| Issuer | Nippon Ginko / Bank of Japan |
|---|---|
| Year | 1915 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Cabinet Printing Bureau, Japan |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 日本銀行兌換券 貳拾圓 此券引換比拾貳和可 兌換国銀金申渡 日本銀行 |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in dark olive-brown ink and presents a central vignette of a Japanese shrine building set within a wooded landscape, framed by an elaborate guilloche border. Two large circular rosette medallions bearing the numeral 20 and the repeated legend '20 En' flank the shrine vignette on either side, interspersed with decorative scrollwork. The lower right carries the English-language gold redemption clause, while 'Nippon Ginko' in stylised Latin script appears at upper left alongside Japanese text and an Imperial sun disc motif at top centre. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Pick 37 belongs to the "Convertible Gilt Note" series, issued at a moment when Japan's gold standard commitments were already under strain. The First World War had disrupted international gold flows, and Japan suspended gold export in September 1917 — just two years after this note's issue date — effectively rendering the "convertible" promise hollow. Notes already in circulation continued to be used, but redemption in physical gold coin became impossible in practice.
The Cabinet Printing Bureau had been producing Bank of Japan notes since the Meiji period, giving the series a degree of technical consistency rare for the era. The watermark security on this denomination reflects the higher scrutiny applied to large-value notes in a country where counterfeiting concerns were taken seriously at the institutional level.