Ōban 'Keichō Meireki Ōban'

The Keichō Meireki Ōban occupies a peculiar position in Japanese monetary history: it was never truly currency in the transactional sense. These plates circulated primarily as gifts between the shogunate and daimyō, as rewards for military or political loyalty, and occasionally as temple donations. Actual commerce was conducted in smaller denominations. The Goto family held a hereditary monopoly on ōban production under the Tokugawa regime, hand-finishing each piece individually — which is why no two are dimensionally identical.

The 1657 Meireki fire that devastated Edo likely accelerated the need for portable stores of wealth in this form, and surviving examples from the decade immediately following show heavier circulation handling than pieces from earlier in the type's run.