RyoGold

The Daijo-kan notes of 1868 were among the first paper currency instruments issued by the new Meiji government, printed almost immediately after the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate. The timing was not coincidental — the new administration urgently needed a circulating medium it controlled, having inherited a monetary system fragmented by clan-issued hansatsu and debased coinage.

Mulberry paper, the traditional substrate for Japanese paper money going back centuries, was specified partly by convention and partly because domestic supply was reliable. The single official seal as the primary security measure reflects how rudimentary anti-counterfeiting infrastructure was in that first revolutionary year.