10 Yen

Japan's Meiji government turned to American bank note printers in the early 1870s as part of a deliberate modernization strategy — domestic security printing infrastructure simply did not yet exist at the required scale or technical standard. The Continental Bank Note Company, then competing fiercely with the American Bank Note Company for foreign government contracts, produced this series alongside other early Meiji currency issues.

Continental's New York operation folded in 1878 when it merged into the American Bank Note Company, making any note from this printer inherently time-bounded to a narrow production window.