There are 1.000, 2.000, 5.000 y 10.000 notes but the 2.000 yen ones are really rare. It’s pretty difficult to get one of those, sometimes you are lucky withdrawing from an ATM or if you ask in your bank office. After more than one year without seeing any 2.000 yen bills I was shopping in Akihabara with my friend Ramón Sangüesa and I realized he had ¡MANY 2.000 yen bills! Here are two of them that Ramón gave to me:
In the year 2.000 a G8 summit was celebrated in Okinawa. In order to conmemorate the millinium change and the G8 summmit in Okinawa the Bank of Japan created the 2.000 yen bill (year 2.000, 2.000 yens 😉 ). They printed 100.000.000 bills, not many, and I think they never printed more. That’s why is so rare and collectors keep them.
On one side of the bill there is a scene from “Genji Monogatari”, one of the first novels writen in Japanese. On the other side there is the Shureimon gate. This gate is the Shuri’s castle main door in Okinawa. Shureimon’s gate was the first structure from the castle (The most important one in Okinawa) that was resconstructed after the end of the war. It’s a symbol of recovery and splendor of Okinawa. People in Okinawa are very proud of the 2.000 yen bill and they keep them instead of using them!
Shureimon’s gate in Okinawa.
9 replies on “2.000 yen bill”
Crap, I had one once, but didn’t know it’s so cool, an was broke anyway, so I used it. Damn!
$2 bills in America are very very rare as well, along with 50 cent coins. It’s kinda funny you took a picture of the money too because when I was in Japan last summer our tour guide mentioned that photographing yen is illegal. She had a friend draw really intricate copies of them for her to show us.
When we went to Japan last, we changed money over here in Sydney. The bank ran out of bigger notes and gave my brother probably about 50 x 2000yen notes, when we went to restaurants etc, the waitresses kept confusing them with 1000 yen bills
I never knew the origin of the 2000 yen bill … now i do, great story.
Andre: 50! That must be a record or something 🙂
We are going to Tokyo tomorrow. I checked the money that we have exchanged and the bank sent us 12 of the 2000 yen bills. They are all in great condition. I will have to hang on to some.
I had one of these and wanted to keep it…my wife (Okinawan) didn’t understand why.
I think your info is kinda wrong seeing as every time I go to Japan which is around six times a year I always get around 20-30 of the 2000 yen note without asking for them so they cant be that rare. Also the reason you dont see them in Japan is that the Japanese see them as pointless and a waste of time and as we all know the Japanese dont waste time therefore they dont use them.
I once thought 2000yen was rare until I received the old 1000yen banknote. Most young Japanese have never even seen it before.