Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
4 Mon "Kan'eitsūhō Iron Alloy; reverse イ I
| Issuer | Tokugawa Shogunate |
|---|---|
| Year | 1866 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Iron |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Chinese |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Plain cast field surrounding the central square hole, decorated with eleven wave motifs radiating outward from the rim of the perforation toward the outer edge of the coin. The Katakana character イ (i) appears in raised relief above the square hole, serving as a mint or batch control mark. The wave pattern, characteristic of the 4 Mon Kan'ei series, varies in starting position relative to the hole according to the specific variety (Kōha or Kyōha). |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
By 1866, the Tokugawa Shogunate was hemorrhaging silver and copper reserves to meet treaty obligations forced open by Western powers after 1854, prompting emergency iron coinage as a stopgap measure. The "Kan'eitsūhō" denomination had been in continuous nominal use since 1636, but these late iron issues bear almost no relationship — metallurgically or economically — to their copper predecessors. The reverse kana イ served as a mint or batch identifier, a practice adopted to manage accountability across the fragmented emergency production.
The Shogunate collapsed within two years of this issue.