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1 Kanmon
| Issuer | Kumihama Prefecture Commerce Office (商法會所) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1868 |
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| Currency | Mon (683-1953) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 錢壹貫文 (役?)縣 久美濵縣 商法會所 (Translation: Cash One Kan Mon; Prefecture ?; Kumihama Prefecture; Commerce Office) |
| Reverse description | Letterpress in black with multiple red overstamp impressions on a narrow vertical format. The upper portion carries vertical column inscriptions in Chinese regular script arranged right to left, with red floral seal stamps applied above; a vertical inscription in Chinese seal script (tensho) appears within a rectangular cartouche at lower centre, and a further inscription is contained within a rhombus at the foot of the note, with a red hanawachigai (interlocking-ring) stamp applied to the middle register. |
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| Comments |
The Kumihama Prefecture Commerce Office (商法會所) was one of dozens of short-lived regional commercial offices established in the immediate aftermath of the Meiji Restoration, empowered to issue their own paper currency before the new central government had built the machinery to standardize Japan's monetary system. Kumihama, a small domain on the Tango Peninsula in present-day Kyoto Prefecture, was never a major financial center, and its commerce office notes circulated in an extremely limited geographic radius.
The 1 Kanmon denomination is notable because the kanmon was already an archaic unit by 1868 — a legacy accounting measure tied to strings of copper cash, increasingly disconnected from real-world trade values at the moment this note was printed.