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1 Mon 'Genpōtsūhō' Regular Script
| Issuer | Nagasaki, City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1659-1667 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 2.12 g |
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| Obverse description | Four Chinese characters in regular script (kaishu) arranged in clockwise reading order around a central square perforation, with one character positioned at each cardinal point: 元 (gen) above, 豊 (po) to the right, 通 (tsu) below, and 寶 (ho) to the left, together forming the legend Genpōtsūhō. The characters are boldly rendered in raised relief against a flat, recessed field, enclosed within a raised inner square rim surrounding the central hole and a broad outer rim. The overall design follows the traditional East Asian cash coin format. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Chinese |
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| Additional information |
The Genpōtsūhō was struck at Nagasaki under direct authorization from the Tokugawa shogunate, which had granted the city special minting privileges partly to manage the copper trade flowing through its port — the only point of sanctioned foreign commerce in Edo-period Japan. Chinese and Dutch merchants settled accounts in Nagasaki in quantities of coin that made local supply perpetually unstable, and this issue was one of several attempts to stabilize small-denomination exchange in a city whose economy operated differently from the rest of the country.
The regular-script variety sits within a documented range of die types catalogued by both Hartill and the DHJ, with subtle calligraphic differences distinguishing individual emissions across the eight-year production window.