Catalog
5 Yen
| Issuer | Japanese Government |
|---|---|
| Year | 1873 |
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| Printer | Continental Bank Note Company |
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| Obverse description | At left, an agricultural vignette shows fieldwork in progress; at right, a complementary vignette illustrates figures engaged in rice planting. Central area carries official text and government seals. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Central vignette of Nihonbashi bridge in Tokyo with Mount Fuji visible in the background, enclosed within a decorative border frame incorporating images of a 5 yen coin alongside inscriptions at the upper and lower margins. |
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| Comments |
Japan's 1871 New Currency Regulations had just decimalized the monetary system when the government turned to American bank note firms for its early paper issues. The Continental Bank Note Company, then a serious competitor to American Bank Note before the 1879 merger that absorbed it, produced this note in New York — a foreign-printed government obligation at a moment when Japan had no domestic facility capable of matching the intaglio security standards required.
The reliance on American printers for sovereign currency was a calculated short-term measure. The government's own printing bureau, the Shishū-sha, would not reach sufficient technical capacity until later in the decade.