100 Mon Mikawa

Mikawa Province han notes occupy an interesting corner of Edo-period monetary history. The Tokugawa shogunate permitted individual domains to issue their own paper currency — hansatsu — for circulation strictly within their boundaries, a deliberate policy of monetary fragmentation that kept economic power decentralized. Mikawa, as a province with particular symbolic resonance as the ancestral home of the Tokugawa clan itself, was no exception to this system.

The 160 × 37 mm strip format is characteristic of hansatsu production, typically block-printed on washi using locally sourced mulberry fiber. Official domain seals functioned as the primary authentication device — sophisticated counterfeiting was rare not because it was technically difficult but because a forged note was only useful within a single domain, dramatically limiting the incentive.