 Originally used only as a representation of amounts of rice (subdivisions of "koku") owned by the scrip-holder and held in the Osaka or Edo merchants' storehouse, these scrips quickly came to be used as currency.Japan's first banknotes, called "Yamada Hagaki" (山田羽書), were issued around 1600 by Shinto priests also working as merchants in the Ise-Yamada (modern Mie Prefecture), in exchange for silver.This was earlier than the first goldsmith notes issued in England around 1640.