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1 Monme

Issuer Tokushima Domain (Japanese feudal domains)
Year 1730
Type Local banknote
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Reverse description Printed in black with a red stamp impression; a fan-shaped cartouche at the lower portion contains an inscription in Chinese seal script. Below this, an image of the uchide-no-kozuchi (a traditional Japanese magic mallet) appears above a block of vertical Chinese seal script text, completing the reverse design.
Reverse lettering 文元
*貨*至*
***匱*
民***用
***非*
國**古*
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Tokushima Domain — the Awa han, held by the Hachisuka clan throughout the Edo period — issued domain currency (hansatsu) as a matter of local fiscal management, since the Tokugawa shogunate permitted domains to produce their own notes provided they circulated only within domain borders. The 1730 date places this squarely in a period of widespread hansatsu proliferation across Japan, when many domains were struggling with chronic silver shortages following the shogunate's repeated debasements of metallic coinage earlier in the century.

The monme denomination ties the note's face value to silver weight — one monme being one-tenth of a ryō in silver reckoning — though the actual backing of any given hansatsu was only as reliable as the issuing domain's finances.

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