Catalog
1 Monme Tsurajima
| Issuer | Tsurajima (Bitchū Province) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1847 |
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| Size | 167 × 41 mm |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 弘化四丁未年十一月 壹匁 生魚切手 嶋連中備 富嶋屋（） (Translation: Kōka fourth Fire Goat year eleventh month One Monme Fresh fish scrip Bitchū Tsurajima) |
| Reverse description | Letterpress print in black ink on washi paper. The upper vignette presents a sailing junk viewed from the bow, its hull rising from stylized waves against a large rising sun rendered in fine radiating lines. The central panel contains a vertical column of cursive script within a guilloche-bordered rectangle overlaid with a partial red seal, while the lower panel encloses a dense geometric key-fret pattern flanked by wave-scroll ornamental elements. |
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| Comments |
Tsurajima was a small trading post settlement in Bitchū Province, and like dozens of similar han and merchant communities in late Edo Japan, it issued its own paper currency to ease local exchange when metallic coinage was chronically scarce. These domain and sub-domain notes — broadly called hansatsu — were legally sanctioned under Tokugawa fiscal arrangements that permitted local authorities to print against commodity or land backing, though enforcement of that backing was inconsistent at best.
The monme denomination ties this note directly to silver-weight reckoning, the dominant accounting system in western Japan. By 1847, the shogunate's own finances were badly strained, and confidence in centralized currency was eroding — fertile ground for local paper to fill the gap.