5 Yen

Japan's postwar currency situation in 1946 was chaotic. The government enacted the Emergency Financial Measures Ordinance in February of that year, freezing existing deposits and mandating the exchange of old notes for new ones — this 5 Yen was part of the flood of issues rushed out to meet that demand. Print quality across the series suffers noticeably as a result; the wartime degradation of Japanese printing infrastructure had not yet recovered.

At just over twelve million printed, this is not a rare note, but heavily circulated examples in collectible condition are harder to find than the mintage suggests — the postwar exchange program burned through paper quickly.