Gold 'Hirumo Kin'

Hirumo kin are among the least-documented gold pieces of the Sengoku period, circulating in northeastern Honshu as local warlords increasingly minted their own currency outside any central authority. Mutsu Province in the 1570s was under the fractured control of competing clans — the Date, the Ashina, and others — none of whom had consolidated the region. Attribution of specific pieces to a single issuing authority remains contested among Japanese numismatists.

The name "hirumo" likely derives from a place associated with gold-washing or small-scale alluvial mining in the region.