Mameitagin — literally "bean-shaped silver" — were produced by licensed Ginza minters using hammer-worked techniques unchanged since the early Edo period, each piece individually assayed and stamped by hand. The Bunsei issue of 1820 emerged from a period of chronic Shogunate fiscal pressure, when the silver content of these irregular pieces was quietly debased well below earlier Genroku and Hōei standards. The Double Daikoku counterstamp — two applications of the luck-deity punch — authenticated the piece as a Ginza product and confirmed its debased fineness was officially sanctioned rather than fraudulent.
No two mameitagin are identical in shape or weight. That was always the point.
Mameitagin — literally "bean-shaped silver" — were produced by licensed Ginza minters using hammer-worked techniques unchanged since the early Edo period, each piece individually assayed and stamped by hand. The Bunsei issue of 1820 emerged from a period of chronic Shogunate fiscal pressure, when the silver content of these irregular pieces was quietly debased well below earlier Genroku and Hōei standards. The Double Daikoku counterstamp — two applications of the luck-deity punch — authenticated the piece as a Ginza product and confirmed its debased fineness was officially sanctioned rather than fraudulent.
No two mameitagin are identical in shape or weight. That was always the point.