MonmeFun Rin Silver

The Tokyo Kawase Kaisha was one of eight exchange companies (kawase kaisha) established by the Meiji government in 1869 as part of its first attempt to build a modern commercial banking infrastructure — before the National Bank Act of 1872 rendered them obsolete. These companies were authorized to issue their own notes, backed theoretically by specie, and this monme-fun denominated paper belongs to that brief, chaotic window when Japan was simultaneously dismantling the Tokugawa monetary order and improvising a replacement.

The monme-fun system itself was already archaic by 1869, a silver-weight denomination tied to pre-Meiji coinage conventions. The exchange companies were liquidated within a few years, and most of their notes were withdrawn. Survivors are accordingly rare.