Mameitagin 'Bunsei Mameitagin' Large 寳

Mameitagin — literally "bean-shaped silver" — were produced at the Ginza mints as an explicitly weighed currency, their irregular form a deliberate artifact of hand-cutting rather than any lapse in quality control. The Bunsei era issues followed a significant debasement: the Bunsei Mameitagin dropped silver fineness sharply from the preceding Bunka pieces, part of the Tokugawa shogunate's repeated attempts to manage chronic fiscal deficits by quietly degrading the coinage. Merchants quickly noticed and adjusted their exchange rates accordingly.

The "Large 寳" designation distinguishes this by the size of the stamped character — a die classification, not a denomination difference.