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1 Silver Monme
| Issuer | Yanagimoto Ginsho (柳本銀所), Yamato Province |
|---|---|
| Year | 1838 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Tall, narrow vertical note on washi paper with a woodblock-printed design. At the top, a vignette of a standing deity or dignitary figure rendered in a traditional Japanese woodcut style; below, the central denomination inscription is printed in bold brushwork characters within a lozenge-shaped cartouche, accompanied by a red official seal stamp. The lower section carries the issuing office name in vertical columns, with additional marginal inscriptions on the left and right edges. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 銀壹匁 柳本銀所 和州柳本 引誓所 |
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| Comments |
Yanagimoto Ginsho was a privately operated silver exchange bureau (ginsho) licensed under the Tokugawa fiscal system to issue local commodity-backed paper in Yamato Province. These notes circulated as proxies for weighed silver — the monme being a unit of weight, not a struck coin — allowing merchants to avoid physically transporting bullion for routine transactions. The system depended entirely on the issuing house's solvency and local reputation, which made provincial ginsho notes inherently fragile instruments.
At 50 × 35 mm, survival is improbable. Washi notes of this class were handled constantly in commercial settings, and most were redeemed or simply worn to illegibility within a decade of issue.