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1 Ryō 'Hōei Koban' Reverse 乾 KEN
| Issuer | Tokugawa Shogunate |
|---|---|
| Year | 1710-1714 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 32x55 mm |
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| Obverse description | Oval hammered gold planchet with a finely striated horizontal-line background covering the entire field. At the upper centre, a fan-shaped decorative cartouche bearing a floral paulownia (kiri) design in relief. Below it, a rectangular seal stamp encloses the cursive characters 壱両 (ichi ryō, '1 Ryō') rendered in the style attributed to the Kinza mint official Goto Mitsutsugu. A circular granulated stamp (ishime-zogan) occupies the upper left field, and a second, larger circular granulated stamp is positioned at the centre of the planchet. A second rectangular seal cartouche in the lower centre bears the characters 光次 (Mitsutsugu), the signature of the Goto assay master. At the lower extremity, a second fan-shaped kiri cartouche mirrors the upper device. |
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| Obverse lettering | 壱 両 光 次 (Translation: 1 Ryō Mitsutsugu) |
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The Hōei Koban was struck in response to a currency crisis engineered — or at least exploited — by the financier Ogiwara Shigehide, who oversaw a series of debasements beginning in 1695 that flooded the economy with lighter, lower-purity gold coins. The Hōei issue partially reversed this, raising fineness back toward earlier Keichō-era standards, though it never fully recovered them. Ogiwara was ultimately dismissed in 1712 under pressure from the Confucian scholar Arai Hakuseki, whose economic reforms shaped the final years of this type's production.
The reverse character 乾 designates one of two certification marks used on this issue, the other being 坤.