Japan will change its banknotes in July of 2024 from Series E to Series F. Series E first appeared in 2004 and will apparently be the last to display the Japanese Kanji numerical denominations prominently on left center (千円, 五千円, 一万円). The new bills use "the international standard" of Arabic numerals in their place, with the Kanji relegated to the borders. I have not read whether the new bills will use polymer or not, but they will utilize holograms for security. Picture specimens of the new bills are in the Bank of Japan link above. Given this change, why not have a look at the Series E banknotes that will likely still circulate for a while, but cease printing. I collected all of them (including the 2000 Yen note for the millennium, which technically belongs to Series D) a while ago and posted them here back in 2020. At that time, Japan still remained largely a physical cash society. More recently, some news stories and documentaries have claimed that it has moved drastically towards using more electronic money, far faster than anyone apparently expected given its traditional preference for cash. 日本銀行 - Bank of Japan 日本銀行券 - Bank of Japan Banknote 1,000 Yen - 千円 2,000 Yen - 弐千円 (Series D, but it circulated with Series E) 5,000 Yen - 五千円 10,000 Yen - 壱万円 The original posts from 2020 have a lot more information about each note, including more translations, closeups, and names of the people depicted. For those interested, here are links to those original posts: 1,000 Yen 2,000 Yen 5,000 Yen 10,000 Yen Honestly, I kind of like the notes with the Kanji numerals better than the Arabic numerals, but I understand the desire to adhere to the international standard. All things must pass, I guess.
I do not. I usually just get a sample of each type. Obtaining all of the prefix variations for the 10,000 Yen would add up in cost pretty quickly.
ewomack - nice single prefix for the 5000 yen. That has slightly higher premium in UNC condition. To those who don't collect Japanese banknotes, the national printing bureau of Japan reissue the same banknote with different serial color - black and brown. I don't remember which come first. The older series had blue as well. So there is a possibility to find banknotes with the exact same serial number but different color. With the newer banknotes, there is an additional prefix at the very end. https://www.boj.or.jp/en/note_tfjgs/note/n_note/security.htm This in theory would put an end to the national printing bureau issuing them in different prefix colors.
A letter at the beginning of a serial is called a prefix. An additional letter at the end of the serial number is called a suffix. Typically for World notes which use alpha-numeric serial number systems: No prefix- tough first issue 1 letter prefixes - tough^ to somewhat uncommon (^ -depends if the nation starts with single letter prefix) 2 letter prefixes - common 2 letter prefix + suffix - quite common* (* unless it is the last & it is short issued combo)
