The was the

currency A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific envi ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

from the

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

in 1336 until the early

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

in 1870. It co-circulated with the new '' sen'' until 1891. Throughout Japanese history, there were many styles of currency of many shapes, styles, designs, sizes and materials, including

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

, etc. The

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

for ''mon'' () also shares its name with Chinese wén,

Korean mun The ''mun'' (, , ) was introduced as the main currency of Korea in 1625 and stayed in use until 1892. Prior to the ''mun'', cash coins with the inscriptions ''tongbo'' (通寶) and ''jungbo'' (重寶) and silver vases called ''ŭnbyŏng'' wer ...

, Vietnamese văn.

Denominations

Coins denominated in mon were cast in

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

and circulated alongside silver and gold ingots denominated in ''shu'', ''bu'' and ''

ryō The was a gold currency unit in the shakkanhō system in pre- Meiji Japan. It was eventually replaced with a system based on the '' yen''. Origins The ''ryō'' was originally a unit of weight from China, the ''tael.'' It came into use in Ja ...

'', with 4000 mon = 16 shu = 4 bu = 1 ryō. In 1869, due to depreciation against gold, the new fixing officially was set for 1 ryō/yen = 1,000 mon. The

yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the euro. T ...

started to replace the old non-decimal denominations in 1870: in the 3rd quarter of 1870, the first new coins appeared, namely 5, 10, 50 sen silver and 2, 5, 10, 20 Yen. Smaller sen coins did not appear before spring, 1873. So the mon coins (1, 4, 100, 250 mon etc.) remained a necessity for ordinary peoples commodities and were allowed to circulate until 31 December 1891. From January 1, 1954, onward, the mon became invalid: postwar

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the average price of goods and services in terms of money. This increase is measured using a price index, typically a consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of curre ...

had removed sen, mon etc. denominations smaller than 1 Yen. Due to the missing small coinage, the Japanese posts issued their first stamps (Meiji 4.3.1 / 1871.4.20) in mon and fixed postal rates in mon until April 1872 (Meiji 5.2.28). During the co-existence of the mon with the sen between 1870 and 1891, the metal content of the old currency became important. Official exchange for coins from 1871.6.27: 4 copper mon = 2 rin, 1 bronze mon = 1 rin (1 rin = 1/10 of a sen). So while not all mon were valued equally, their metal kind counted after the transition to decimal sen: bronze was valued more highly than copper. The first physical rin denomination was introduced in 1873 with the

1 rin coin The was a Japanese coin worth one one-thousandth of a Japanese yen, as 10 ''rin'' equalled 1 sen, and 100 sen equaled 1 yen. The coins are no longer in circulation, but they are bought and sold both by professional numismatists and by amateur ...

(with the 5 rin coin introduced in 1916), as until that time the rin had existed only as an accounting unit (10 rin = 1 sen). The most current coin, the ''

Tenpō Tsūhō The Tenpō Tsūhō (; kyūjitai: or ) was an Edo period coin with a face value of 100 mon, originally cast in the 6th year of the Tenpō era (1835). The obverse of the coin reads "Tenpō" () a reference to the era this coin was designed in, and ...

'' ( 天保通寶, a coin with a face value of 100 mon) was valued at only 8 rin (0.8 sen) in that sen period.

History

''Toraisen'', and ''Shichūsen''

Though the production of copper, silver, and gold coins had already started in the eighth century, they were not often used as a

medium for exchange In economics, a medium of exchange is any item that is widely acceptable in exchange for goods and services. In modern economies, the most commonly used medium of exchange is currency. Most forms of money are categorised as mediums of exchange, i ...

until later when the Japanese started importing Chinese coins, which replaced the Japanese

commodity currency A commodity currency is a currency that co-moves with the world prices of primary commodity products, due to these countries' heavy dependency on the export of certain raw materials for income. Commodity currencies are most prevalent in developing ...

economy. As internal trade grew due to agricultural and handicraft developments, the people started preferring coinage to barter, leading to a growth of demand for copper coins. The

Southern Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, endin ...

prohibited the export of its coinage in 1179 due to its problem with the outflow of currency, but shiploads of Chinese coins would still enter Japan annually through

Ningbo Ningbo is a sub-provincial city in northeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises six urban districts, two satellite county-level cities, and two rural counties, including several islands in Hangzhou Bay and the Eas ...

. There is evidence to suggest that the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

used to extensively export

Chinese cash coins The cash or ''qian'' was a type of coin of China and the East Asian cultural sphere, Sinosphere, used from the 4th century BCE until the 20th century, characterised by their round outer shape and a square center hole ( zh, c=方穿, poj=hong-chh ...

to Japan for local circulation. The

Sinan shipwreck Sinan (Arabic: سنان ''sinān'') is a name found in Arabic and Early Arabic, meaning ''spearhead''. The name may also be related to the Ancient Greek name Sinon. It was used as a male given name. Etymology The word is possibly stems from th ...

, which was a ship from Ningbo to Hakata that sank off the

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

n coast in the year 1323, carried some 8,000 strings of cash coins, which weighed about . Since the trade had begun with Japan, and they received payment in Chinese coins for Japanese goods, they stopped minting their own copper coinage until 1587. The Ashikaga shogunate imported '' Kōbu Tsūhō'' (), '' Eiraku Tsūhō'' (), and ''Katei Tsūhō'' () from the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

, which they referred to as ''Toraisen'' () or ''Minsen'' (), but the high demand for copper coinage inspired local and private production of copper coins (''Shichūsen'', ). An example of a ''Shichūsen'' used for trade with China and the

Ryukyu Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom was a kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands from 1429 to 1879. It was ruled as a Tributary system of China, tributary state of Ming dynasty, imperial Ming China by the King of Ryukyu, Ryukyuan monarchy, who unified Okinawa Island t ...

would be a ''Kōbu Tsūhō'' coin minted by

Satsuma domain The , briefly known as the , was a Han system, domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of ...

which included the character "" (''Ji'') on the reverse indicating that it was minted at the town of Kajiki, while still using the inscription of the

Hongwu Emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328– 24 June 1398), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Ming, personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, courtesy name Guorui, was the List of emperors of the Ming dynasty, founding emperor of the Ming dyna ...

Ming China The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

. Some ''Shichūsen'' would also bear the inscriptions of coins from the

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

, although it was not uncommon for many coins to simply be recasts and copies of older Song and Ming dynasty coins in the form of '' Iutsushi'' () or by simply adding extra carvings on existing circulating Chinese coins. ''

Bitasen ' refers to a privately minted Japanese mon (currency), mon type coin that circulated in Japan from the middle of the Muromachi period to the early Edo period. These low quality imitation Chinese cash coins were made to aid the supply of cash coi ...

'' refers to the ' coinage produced in Japan by the nobility and private local mints, and not by the imperial government or before the establishment of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

which were often poor in appearance, as well as damaged and worn out imported

Chinese coins The term Chinese currency may refer to: *Renminbi, the currency of the People's Republic of China *New Taiwan dollar, the currency of the Republic of China (Taiwan) *Hong Kong dollar, the currency of Hong Kong SAR *Yuan (currency), the base unit of ...

''Kan'ei Tsūhō''

In 1636, the ''

Kan'ei Tsūhō The Kan'ei Tsūhō (Kyūjitai: 寛永通寳; Shinjitai: 寛永通宝) was a Japanese mon (currency), Japanese mon coin in use from 1626 until 1868 during the Edo period. In 1636, the ''Kan'ei Tsūhō'' coin was introduced by the Tokugawa shoguna ...

'' (

Kyūjitai ''Kyūjitai'' () are the traditional forms of kanji (Chinese written characters used in Japanese writing). Their simplified counterparts are '' shinjitai'' (). Some of the simplified characters arose centuries ago and were in everyday use in bot ...

: 寛永通寳 ;

Shinjitai are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in ''shinjitai'' are also found in simplified Chinese characters, but ''shinjitai'' is generally not as exten ...

: 寛永通宝) coin was introduced by the government of the Tokugawa shogunate as a means to standardise copper coins and keep up a sufficient supply of copper coinage, being the first government minted copper coin in 700 years, despite this however they were introduced in the

Mito domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hitachi Province in modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture.Kan'ei was a after '' Genna'' and before ''Shōhō.'' This period spanned the years from February 1624 through December 1644. The reigning emperors and single empress were , and .Titsingh, Isaac. (1834) ''Annales des empereurs du japon'', p. 411./re ...

era. These coins would become the daily currency of the common people and would be used for small payments. Due to the

isolationist Isolationism is a term used to refer to a political philosophy advocating a foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality an ...

policies of the Tokugawa shogunate, the outflow of currency halted and ''Kan'ei Tsūhō'' coins would continue to stay the main coin circulating in Japan. ''Kan'ei Tsūhō'' were minted for 230 years despite the fact that the Kan’ei era ended in 1643, and coins would continue to bear the ''Kan’ei'' legend, even when a new denomination of the coin was introduced a century later, though they were not all uniform as the shogunate outsourced the mintage to regional and local merchants who would cast them at varying weights and sizes, as well as occasionally having local

mint mark A mint mark is a letter, symbol or an inscription on a coin indicating the mint where the coin was produced. It is distinct from a mintmaster mark, the mark of the mintmaster. History Mint marks were first developed to locate a problem. If a co ...

s. By the 1650s 16 private mints were opened for the production of Kan'ei Tsūhō coins all over Japan. Kan'ei Tsūhō produced before 1688 are referred to as "old Kan’ei" and are recognisable by their similar calligraphic styles making them hard to differentiate from one another, meanwhile ''Kan'ei Tsūhō'' coins produced after 1688 (or "new Kan’ei" coins) tend to be more diverse in calligraphic styling, and the 4 mon denomination has waves on its reverse making it easily distinguishable from other coins. From 1738 the government authorised the manufacture of iron ''Kan'ei Tsūhō'' 1 mon coins, and in 1866 (just before the end of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

) iron 4 mon ''Kan'ei Tsūhō'' were authorised. While iron coins were being minted, the quality of copper coins would decrease due to frequent

debasement A debasement of coinage is the practice of lowering the intrinsic value of coins, especially when used in connection with commodity money, such as gold or silver coins, while continuing to circulate it at face value. A coin is said to be debased ...

Export

As ''Bitasen'' coins were no longer allowed to circulate within Japan, Japanese traders started selling them on foreign markets for profits, especially on the

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

ese market where a huge influx of ''Eiraku Tsūhō'' and ''Kan'ei Tsūhō'' coins from Japan made the Japanese mon the ''de facto'' currency of the region. The large export of Japanese coins to Vietnam during this period mostly happened on Red seal ships. From 1633 the Tokugawa government adopted the isolationist

Sakoku is the most common name for the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and almost all ...

policy. The Shogunate, however, opened up the seaport of

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

to export with the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

and Chinese merchant ships from

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

. The Japanese merchants who were now prohibited from exporting mon coins directly to Vietnam used the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

traders as middlemen and exported, between 1633 and 1637, around 105,835 strings of 960 ''Eiraku Tsūhō'' and ''Kan’ei Tsūhō coins'' (or 101,600,640 mon) to Vietnam. From 1659 this continued with the Nagasaki trade coins which were specifically minted for foreign markets; this is why they were escribed with Song dynasty inscriptions as coins from the Song dynasty were already circulating in Southeast Asia and the populace had already become accustomed to them. The trade of mon coins stopped however after the Shogunate banned the export of copper in 1715.

Inflation during the Bakumatsu

In 1708 the Tokugawa shogunate introduced the ''Hōei Tsūhō'' (

: ;

: ) which had a face value of 10 mon (but contained 3 times as much copper as a 1 mon ''Kan’ei Tsūhō'' coin), which lead to the coin being discontinued very shortly after it started circulating as it was not accepted for its nominal value. However, in 1835 (during the

Bakumatsu were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate Meiji Restoration, ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a Feudali ...

) the Tokugawa shogunate tried issuing a larger denomination copper coin again with the ''

'' 100 mon coin which this time only contained five and a half times the amount of copper in a 1 mon coin, but was accepted nonetheless. The introduction of this denomination caused large scale inflation comparable to that of caused by the 100 wén coin minted by the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

in 1853, or the 100 mun coin issued by the

Kingdom of Joseon Joseon ( ; ; also romanized as ''Chosun''), officially Great Joseon (), was a dynastic kingdom of Korea that existed for 505 years. It was founded by Taejo of Joseon in July 1392 and replaced by the Korean Empire in October 1897. The kingdom w ...

in 1866. The reason for the change in mentality was the scarcity of copper which had earlier forced the Japanese to mint iron coins breaking the previously established tri-metallic system. The concurrent circulation of 1, 4, and (heavily debased) 100 mon coins caused for a chaotic reaction from the market, as did widespread circulation of forged coinage. Another major cause for inflation was that from 1859 local

Daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

started minting their own coinage often with high denominations to increase the money supply or to get more gold and silver for their low copper supplies. In 1862 this inspired Daimyō

Shimazu Nariakira was a Japanese feudal lord (''daimyō'') of the Edo period, the 28th in the line of Shimazu clan lords of Satsuma Domain. He was renowned as an intelligent and wise lord, and was greatly interested in Western learning and technology. He was ...

to produce ''Tenpō Tsūhō'' derivatives in the form of 100 on '' Ryūkyū Tsūhō'' coins and even ½ Shu ''Ryūkyū Tsūhō'' coins under the pretence of minting coins for their vassal

, this proved profitable for the

Stringing of coins

Mon coins were holed, allowing them to be strung together on a piece of string. In the Edo period of Japan (1615-1868), stringed together coins received a small discount when presented like this. For example, for 100 Mon payment: if those 1 Mon coins were all tied in a row, discount given was 4 mon, so 96 stringed coins of 1 mon were accepted at par with 100 mon. Similar discounts existed probably for other bulk payments with small coinage in stringed form.

List of Japanese mon coins

During the history of the Japanese mon, many coins with different inscriptions were cast. The main coins cast by the central government were: Many Japanese domains produced their own currency, which happened chaotically, so that the nation's money supply expanded by 2.5 times between 1859 and 1869, leading to crumbling money values and soaring prices.

Japan Currency Museum The , formally known as the , is a museum about Japanese currency located in front of the Bank of Japan building in Chūō, Tokyo. The museum opened in November 1985.Edan CorkillBank of Japan Currency Museum invests in exhibition on wallets '' ...

(日本貨幣博物館) permanent exhibit These coins were often produced with the name of the domain or

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

on them. The mon coins produced by domains are:

Denominations

History

''Toraisen'', and ''Shichūsen''

''Kan'ei Tsūhō''

Export

Inflation during the Bakumatsu

Stringing of coins

List of Japanese mon coins

See also

Currencies with the same etymology

Notes

References

Further reading