Japan’s currency is probably the most valuable in the region and as a consequence, counterfeiting has gone up in recent years. The National Police Agency reported a 25-times increase in forgeries over the past five years. They expect to recover 30,000 fake bills this year.
So the Bank of Japan launched an anti-counterfeiting measure and released new banknotes on November 1st. I spotted one “in the wild” yesterday.
The 5,000 yen note features a new face, 19th century novelist Ichiyo Higuchi. She was a pioneer feminist writer. I haven’t ever read her work, but I guess I ought to.
There are, of course, all sorts of new measures to foil counterfeiters and you can read about them on the Bank of Japan’s About Money pages.
And so I don’t forget in a few months when most of the old bills are gone, the old 5000 yen notes look like this:
according to this nyt articel the reason behind the new bills
is a different one.
” The high cost suggests another agenda, which appears to be flushing out hidden money. The currency shift is an attempt to bring into the economy trillions of yen that Japan’s elderly keep stashed at home.
“The trick in Japan is to unlock the mattress money, the futon money,” Jesper Koll, chief economist for Merrill Lynch Japan, said. “In Japan, coins and notes account for about 15 percent of national income, which compares to 6 percent in Germany and 3 to 3.5 percent in America.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/02/business/worldbusiness/02notes.html
but i really like the design, if you copy/paste&tile them in PS they make for pretty
cool gift wrapping paper, at least outside japan. for small stuff that is -din a3 is my printers limit.
Doesn’t the “out of the matress” strategy only work if they make the old notes invalid? They haven’t—the old bills spend the same as the new ones and they haven’t said there’s a time limit on them.
Posted by: Kristen on November 6, 2004 07:30 AMI saw a new 1,000 and a new 10,000 yesterday while we were out and about. They are getting them into circulation quickly!
Posted by: Kristen on November 6, 2004 07:32 AM