9 Monme 2 Fun 'Akita Ginban'

Kubota Domain — modern Akita Prefecture — operated its own silver exchange bureau, the Ginban, under authorization from the Tokugawa shogunate during the final convulsive years of the bakumatsu period. This denomination was struck to facilitate local rice-economy transactions at a moment when national coinage was thoroughly debased and widely distrusted. The shogunate had slashed silver content in its own issues so aggressively through the 1850s that domain authorities across Tōhoku had practical reasons to issue higher-purity local currency.

The .970 fineness is notably honest for the period.