500 Tögrög Yokozuna Ounomatsu

Ōnomatsu Midorinosuke was a yokozuna of the early nineteenth century, promoted to sumo's highest rank during the Bunsei period. Mongolia's long fascination with sumo — rooted in the sport's overlap with Mongolian wrestling tradition — made such commemoratives a natural fit, and by the mid-2000s Mongolian wrestlers were already dominating the upper divisions of Japanese professional sumo at a rate that made the cultural connection impossible to ignore.

Hakuho's 2004 promotion to jūryō had just made international headlines when this coin was struck.