Ōban 'Man'en Ōban' Taganeme

The Man'en Ōban was struck in 1860 as part of a broader emergency recoinage forced on the Shogunate by the unequal exchange treaties signed with Western powers beginning in 1858. Foreign traders, exploiting the domestic gold-to-silver ratio in Japan — roughly 1:5 versus the international 1:15 — were draining gold from the country at an alarming pace. The Shogunate's response was to dramatically reduce the gold content of circulating issues, and the Man'en Ōban carries a fineness far below its Edo-period predecessors.

Fewer than 2,500 are believed to have been produced across the entire emission.