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Japanese Money
From Virtual Japan
Japanese money or yen (円) is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market. After the US Dollar and Euro, it is the top currency in the world and is often used as a reserve currency after the US dollar, Euro, and British Pound. The Kanji above as well as the Romanized symbol of ¥ are both used to display Yen and the ISO 4217 code is JPY and 392. Yen is usually rounded off to 10,000s or ‘man’ when counted.
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History
The Yen was first introduced by the Meiji government in 1872 to model after European systems of currency, replacing the Edo Era currency measure of ‘mon’. The decimal system was adopted in 1871 under new laws enacted and coins were rounded and cast as in the west. A single Yen was legally defined as 0.78 ounces of pure silver or 1.5 grams of pure gold. The same amount of silver today is worth 1181 yen and the same amount of gold is worth 4715 yen.
The Yen’s value was much higher before World War II, but dropped significantly afterwards, with the United States redefining the Yen and fixing the price at ¥360 after the war to stabilize the value of the currency. The exchange remained that way until 1971 when the US abandoned the gold standard and started charging 10% on all imports, leading to the floating of exchange rates in 1973 and beyond.
The yen was severely undervalued by 1971 and thus exports were costing too little and imports too much. Set exchange rates were all abandoned in 1973 and the yen started to float back to where it belonged and the yen continued to rise in value, to 271 per $1 in 1973, then 211 in 1978, and as high as 80 per $1 in 1995 before the bubble in Japan’s economy bust and the prices stabilized to around 110 yen per $1 as it stands in 2008.
Yen Coins
The yen coin was introduced in 1870 with the 5, 10, 20, and 50 sen coins and then 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20 yen coins. Sen were fazed out in the 1950s when the currency had devalued too much to make their use pliable. The aluminum 1 yen coin was introduced in 1955 along with the nickel 50 yen coin. Silver 100 yen coins were introduced in 1957 and the first 500 yen coins were introduced in 1982.
Bills
Yen banknotes began appearing in 1872 in denominations between 10 sen and 10,000 yen. While multiple sources issued banknotes before and during the war, since then only the Bank of Japan has issued them with the current series of yen banknotes being issued in denominations of 1000, 2000, 5000, and 10,000.