50 Sen - Meiji

This type was introduced following Japan's sweeping Currency Act of 1897, which halved the silver content of the sen series as part of a broader shift to the gold standard — a direct consequence of the indemnity windfall extracted from China after the First Sino-Japanese War. The 1897 reform gave Japan the gold reserves needed to finally peg the yen to gold, and the subsidiary silver coinage was revalued accordingly.

Production across the 1906–1912 window corresponds almost exactly with the Russo-Japanese War's financial aftermath, a period when government expenditure had so strained the treasury that subsidiary coinage policy remained under continuous review.