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5 Monme Hiroshima
| Issuer | Japan |
|---|---|
| Year | 1764 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Monme Silver / Monme-Gin / Ginme (1601-1874) |
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| Obverse description | Tall, narrow note printed on aged yellow-toned paper in the traditional Japanese hansatsu format. The upper register contains a vignette of a dragon or mythical beast rendered in woodblock style amid cloud scrollwork. Below, the denomination 五匁 (five monme) is boldly rendered in large brushwork characters at centre, flanked by decorative square guilloche-style border panels on either side, with the era inscription 明和元年甲申 (First year of Meiwa, year of the Yang Wood Monkey, 1764) running vertically to the left. The lower register carries issuing authority text reading 藩通勤銀札 in a horizontal band, above a final panel containing multiple columns of smaller administrative text and three seal impressions in red and brown ink. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse presents a plain, unprinted surface of aged yellow-toned mulberry or kozo-style paper, consistent with typical Edo-period hansatsu construction, showing natural toning and the texture of the hand-laid sheet. |
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| Comments |
This note originates from Hiroshima han, one of dozens of feudal domains that operated their own paper currency systems under the Tokugawa shogunate — a monetary arrangement that produced hundreds of distinct hansatsu issues, each theoretically valid only within its domain's borders. The 5 monme denomination is silver-weight based, monme being a unit of mass for silver rather than a face-value coin denomination, which tells you something about how commercial exchange actually functioned in mid-Edo period western Japan.
Hiroshima han was a large and relatively prosperous domain under the Asano clan, which gave its currency more practical reach than most hansatsu.