New Japanese currency to enter circulation on Nov. 1

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content...at=3&id=311555

In article ,
John Stone wrote:
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=3&id=311555

Not "new currency", per se -- it's still the yen. New 1000, 5000, and
10000 yen notes. No images there, alas.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/02/world/main517343.shtml has
more details.

The new bills will feature the latest in anti-forgery technology,
including pearl ink, latent images and the same holograms and
watermark bar codes used on the euro.

One technology, too secret to make public, will be used for the
first time anywhere in the world, a Bank of Japan official told
reporters. "We can't disclose what that technology is because that
would defeat the whole purpose," he said.

National Police Agency figures show that the number of counterfeit
bills detected soared to 9,825 in the first six months of this
year, up from fewer than 1,000 four years ago.

This part puzzles me:

The introduction of new bills is likely to prompt massive orders
for new cash machines, Economics Minister Heizo Takenaka told a
news conference.

Another article, from the Daily Yomiuri, says the same thing. Why?
Why won't the old ATMs just take the new notes?

http://www.easterwood.org/hmmn/archives/000098.html says they're the
first new Japanese currency designs in 20 years. They have a small
image of the new 5000 yen note.

http://web-japan.org/trends01/article/020927bus_r.html says that
it's been planned since 2002. It has front and back images of the
1000 and 5000 yen notes. It adds

Use of the embossed identification mark that was introduced with
the {yen}2,000 note - which is raised higher than the marks on
the old bills - will be continued with the new notes. While the
raised marks make things more difficult for would-be
counterfeiters, they at the same time allow blind people to
distinguish among the bills by touch.

Ooo-er! Can I get high-relief dollars now?

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_2002_August_5/ai_90193563
says that "The 10,000 yen bills account for 51.5% of banknotes in
circulation, followed by 1,000 yen notes at 29.3%. The 2,000 yen
bills, just two years old, have the lowest circulation, at 300
million."

Here we go! http://www.boj.or.jp/en/money/02/bnnew.htm is an
official Bank of Japan press release from 2002. It has images, front
and back, of all three. And I see a reason why ATMs might need at
least some changing: each note has a different width (150 mm, 156 mm,
160 mm). Still, I would have expected them to have just replacable
cartridges where the outside machinery could handle a wide variety of
widths.

--
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To:

In article writes:
....
Use of the embossed identification mark that was introduced with
the {yen}2,000 note - which is raised higher than the marks on
the old bills - will be continued with the new notes. While the
raised marks make things more difficult for would-be
counterfeiters, they at the same time allow blind people to
distinguish among the bills by touch.

Ooo-er! Can I get high-relief dollars now?

They are already a bit late. I do not know when those were introduced in
the Netherlands, but it is somewhere in the 1980s.

And I see a reason why ATMs might need at
least some changing: each note has a different width (150 mm, 156 mm,
160 mm).

The old notes also had different widths. There are extremely few countries
where all notes have the same size.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/