300 Mon

The extreme aspect ratio of this note — nearly four times as long as it is wide — is not accidental. Hansatsu, the class of feudal domain currency to which most Japanese mon-denomination notes belong, were deliberately issued in narrow strip format to distinguish them visually and physically from central Tokugawa coinage and from notes issued by other domains. Acceptance was strictly local; a 300 mon note from one han was worthless paper thirty kilometers away.

The mon itself was already an archaic unit by the time many of these notes circulated, being phased out entirely with the Meiji monetary reforms of 1871.