Catalog
50 Sen 'Fuji-Sakura'
| Issuer | Japanese Government (大日本帝國) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1938 |
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| Printer | Cabinet Printing Bureau (内閣印刷局造幣) |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette of Mount Fuji rendered in fine intaglio engraving, with radiating sunbeams above and clouds at its base, set against a warm ochre underprint. Cherry blossom (sakura) sprigs in blue-tinted letterpress frame the lower portion of the design, flanking the large kanji denomination 五拾銭. The Imperial chrysanthemum seal appears at top centre, with the issuer legend and denomination numerals in ornate cartouches at upper left and upper right, and the Shōwa year date at lower left. |
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| Obverse lettering | 大日本帝國政府紙幣 五拾銭 昭和十三年 紀元二千五百九十八年 内閣印刷局造製 |
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| Comments |
The 1938 Japanese wartime sen denominations were printed domestically by the Cabinet Printing Bureau as Japan's military expenditures strained the currency supply — the light paper and simplified intaglio work on this series reflect deliberate production economies made under those pressures. The Bureau was already being tasked with printing occupation scrip for China and Manchuria alongside domestic issues, and the workload showed.
Sen-denomination notes had largely been a rarity in Japanese daily life before the late 1930s; coin shortages driven by wartime metal requisitions pushed paper into fractional use for the first time at scale.