1 Yen

Japan's first domestically authorized modern currency series, the Meiji "dajokan-satsu" notes had already exposed the dangers of relying entirely on foreign presses — counterfeit plates and unauthorized overruns were genuine concerns with earlier issues sent to the United States. For the 1872 series the Ministry of Finance contracted Dondorf & Naumann in Frankfurt, bringing in the Genoese engraver Edoardo Chiossone to design and cut the plates. Chiossone would later relocate to Japan permanently in 1875 to help establish indigenous intaglio printing capacity at what became the Imperial Printing Bureau.

The Frankfurt origin of these sheets matters: production was completed abroad and imported, before Japan had the technical means to replicate the work itself.