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!
5 Yen
| Issuer | Bank of Japan |
|---|---|
| Year | 1930 |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Cabinet Printing Bureau, Tokyo |
| 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 | Black intaglio print on a green and olive-orange underprint. A vignette of Kitano Shrine occupies the left portion of the note, balanced at right by a portrait of the scholar and statesman Sugawara no Michizane. Guilloche scrollwork frames the central field, with Japanese inscriptions identifying the issuing authority and denomination. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Brown and olive intaglio design centred on an elaborate guilloche oval vignette enclosing a large stylised plum blossom rosette with the numeral 5 at its centre. Denomination panels bearing the kanji character for yen (円) flank the central vignette at left and right, with a Japanese banner inscription across the upper portion and the legend 5 YEN in Roman lettering along the lower margin. A small red official seal appears at lower left. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| 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 |
The Cabinet Printing Bureau — Naikaku Insatsukyoku — had been producing Bank of Japan notes since the Meiji period, and by 1930 its intaglio work was technically accomplished enough that Japan had little need for the foreign contractors, particularly De La Rue, that earlier series had depended upon. This note belongs to a period of acute deflationary pressure: Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke restored the gold standard in January 1930 at the pre-war parity, a decision that proved disastrous and was reversed within two years.
Inoue was assassinated in February 1932 by an ultranationalist, one of several political killings that bracketed the short, brutal life of Japan's gold standard experiment.