20 Sen - Meiji

The 20 sen denomination was caught in an awkward position throughout the Meiji monetary reforms — too large for everyday small transactions, too small for significant commerce. Production ran sporadically across the series' three-decade span, with several years seeing no output at all as the government recalibrated silver coin demand against the competing 10 and 50 sen pieces. Japan's adoption of the gold standard in 1897 effectively demoted the entire silver sen series to subsidiary coinage, and mintages after that point dropped sharply. The .800 fineness was set deliberately below pure silver to discourage melting.