5 Monme 'Meiwa Go-monme-gin'

The Meiwa go-monme-gin was issued by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1765 as part of a broader debasement policy that had been quietly eroding silver coinage for decades. The monme-gin series — bean-shaped lumps struck to a nominal weight standard — had circulated since the mid-Edo period, but by the Meiwa era the silver content had dropped sharply from earlier issues. Merchants, who weighed and tested these pieces routinely rather than accepting them at face value, were well aware of the difference.

Production halted after just three years when the issue was withdrawn and superseded by further reformed coinage under continued fiscal pressure from the shogunate's chronic budget deficits.