Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1/2 Yen
| Issuer | Ministry of Finance, Japan |
|---|---|
| Year | 1872 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 89 × 53 mm |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Vertically oriented note printed in brown with a symmetrical guilloche underprint; two official seals — one in red and one in blue — appear within the central field, flanking the Ministry of Finance inscription. The serial number is rendered in Japanese characters and appears twice, once at the top and once at the bottom of the note. |
| Reverse lettering | 三八二三 ✶えひ 番 号 半 政大 府日 内本 蔵帝 卿國 半 番 号 三八二三 ✶えひ (Translation: Number Half Finance Minister of the Imperial Government of Japan Half Number) |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Japan's Meiji government contracted Dondorf & Naumann in Frankfurt for its first Western-style banknote series because domestic printing technology in 1872 simply could not produce intaglio currency to the standard required. Chiossone — an Italian engraver who had trained in Genoa and worked for the Italian government before being recruited — designed and engraved the plates himself, an unusual consolidation of both roles in a single hand.
Chiossone would later relocate permanently to Japan and found the official government printing bureau, training a generation of Japanese engravers. This Frankfurt-printed half-yen note predates all of that infrastructure.