Hello Silver & Gold stackers! Today I have another of those banknotes I mentioned I had recently picked up from the store. In the past few weeks I've looked at a ¥10 note from 1943 and a 5 sen note from 1944. Now let's look at one in between those two, a ¥1 note from 1943.

As I mentioned in one of those past posts, in 1943 the value of the yen had slipped from 1:1 to the US dollar to ¥3.15 to the dollar. Not nearly as low as it would fall, but a worrying sign. That puts this ¥1 right around 32 US cents. That may seem like very little, but adjusted for inflation that puts it right around $5.80 in 2024 money, making it still a decent amount.

Front

The bearded guy is Takenouchi no Sukune, a legendary statesman and hero, born in the year 84 AD, supposedly serving five legendary emperors and living to the very respectable age of 280. All those "legendaries" mean we don't think he or those early emperors actually existed. But then again, there is one Korean historic source that mentions a very similar name in regards to an early invasion from Japan and so some historians think this could be proof he actually did exist in some capacity.

All the text is:

• 日本銀行券 (Nippon Ginkōken), "Bank of Japan note"
• 壹圓 (ichi en), "one yen"
• 日本銀行 (Nippon Ginkō), "Bank of Japan".
• 大日本帝國印刷局幣造 (Dai Nippon Teikoku Insatsu Kyoku Heizō), "Printed by the Japanese Empire Printing Bureau"

All of the horizontal text is backwards to our eye because at the time Japanese was written right to left.

Back Side

^{Unfortunately someone wrote on it. Oh well.}

Another fairly minimal back, like the 5 sen note we looked at last week, simply including some designs as well as a picture of Ube Shrine, which is shrine in Tottori Prefecture where Takenouchi no Sukune is enshrined.

• 日本銀行券, "Bank of Japan note"
• 壹圓 (ichi en), "one yen"

About

Just a year after the war the Bank of Japan issued a new ¥1 note which was part of the new yen series, their attempt to fight inflation by making people trade old yen notes for new yen notes. I can't find a source for what the exchange rate was on that old to new trade. Because of that, this ¥1 note was only printed for 3 years until 1946. However, it seems like this was the only denomination not required to be traded for new yen, so it remained in use until 1958 when all ¥1 banknotes were withdrawn in favor of the new ¥1 aluminum coin (by which point, ¥1 had fallen down to 360 of them to the US dollar. That's much less than a penny)

Here is a silver ¥1 coin before the war, the ¥1 banknote during the war, and an aluminum ¥1 after.

^{The Story of a Declining Value}

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.