Japanese Notes

I sure do!
Have no idea what they are about, but one thing is for sure:
I will certainly now read up all I can on them!

Very nice Dave, can you give us a little history on these?
John1

There printed on thick paper/card and known as hansatsu notes, issued by the clans of Japan, before 1868(i think) the money system was based on a 15 silver to 1 gold sort of thing, and these were the notes that circulated. Before 1868 Japan was closed off to the world with exception to the Dutch and some chinese. In 1868 america went into a port of japan guns blazing and demanding that they open up, if they didnt they would declare war upon the Japanese. The next day the americans came back with twice the amount of warships, and finally japan opened up to the world. This was a bad thing for japan, for the rest of the world silver was traded at 150 pieces for 1 piece of gold supposedly, and when the west heard about this everyone traded their gold for silver, set for japan to take advantage of their system and in 3-4 years crushed the japanese economy (no wonder what happen in WW1 and WW2 :s. Japan lost most of their gold as a result. They had to totally scrap their old currency system and bring in the new Yen, I believe coins were made around 1871 and Banknotes were made around 1872. Personally the first yen note of 1872 is one of the nicest Japanese notes I have ever seen, much nicer than the Hansatsu clan notes. Still nice to have though. I have some of the late ones from the 1860's just before the economy crashed.

Do you have a 1872 yen?

Very nice Hansatsu's. This form of provinical paper money goes back to the late 1600. My oldest date to the 1740's.