Japanese mon (currency)


The mon was the currency of Japan from the Muromachi period in 1336 until the early Meiji period in 1870. It co-circulated with the new sen until 1891. The Kanji for mon is 文 and the character for currency was widely used in the Chinese-character cultural sphere, e.g. Chinese wen, Korean mun. Throughout Japanese history, there were many different styles of currency of many shapes, styles, designs, sizes and materials, including gold, silver, bronze, etc. Coins denominated in mon were cast in copper or iron and circulated alongside silver and gold ingots denominated in shu, bu and ryō, with 4000 mon = 16 shu = 4 bu = 1 ryo. In 1869, due to depreciation against gold, the new fixing officially was set for 1 ryo/yen = equal to 10.000 mon. The yen started to replace the old duodecimal denominations in 1870: in 3rd quarter of 1870, the first new coins appeared, namely 5, 10, 50 sen silver and 2, 5, 10, 20 Yen. Smaller sen coins did not appear before spring, 1873. So the mon coins remained a necessity for ordinary peoples commodities and were allowed to circulate until 1891.12.31. Only from Jan. 1, 1954 onward the mon became invalid: postwar inflation had removed sen, mon etc. denominations smaller than 1 Yen. Due to the missing small coinage, the Japanese posts e.g. issued their first stamps in mon and fixed postal rates in mon until April, 1872.
During the co-existence of the mon with the sen between 1870 and 1891, the metal content of the old currency became important. Official exchange for coins from 1871.6.27: 4 copper mon = 2 rin, 1 bronze mon = 1 rin. So while not all mon were valued equally, their metal kind counted after the transition to decimal sen: bronze was valued more highly than copper. The first physical rin denomination was introduced 1873 with the 1 rin coin, as until that time the rin had existed only as an accounting unit. The most current coin, the Tempō Tsūhō was valued at only 8 rin in that sen period.

History

''Toraisen'', ''Shichūsen'', and ''Bitasen''

Though the production of copper, silver, and gold coins had already started in the eighth century, they weren't often used as a medium for exchange until later when the Japanese started importing Chinese coins, which replaced the Japanese barter economy. As internal trade grew due to agricultural and handicraft developments, the people started preferring coinage over barter, leading to a growth of demand in copper coins. The Southern Song dynasty prohibited the export of its coinage in 1179 due to its problem with the outflow of currency, but shiploads of Chinese coins would still enter Japan annually through Ningbo. There is evidence to suggest that the Yuan dynasty used to extensively export Chinese cash coins to Japan for local circulation. The Sinan shipwreck, which was a ship from Ningbo to Hakata that sank off the Korean coast in the year 1323, carried some 8,000 strings of cash coins, which weighed about 26,775 kg.
Since the trade had begun with Japan, and they received payment in Chinese coins for Japanese goods, they stopped minting their own copper coinage until 1587. The Ashikaga shogunate imported Kōbu Tsūhō, Eiraku Tsūhō, and Katei Tsūhō from the Ming dynasty, which they referred to as Toraisen or Minsen, but the high demand for copper coinage inspired local and private production of copper coins. An example of a Shichūsen used for trade with China and the Ryukyu Kingdom would be a Kōbu Tsūhō coin minted by Satsuma domain which included the character “” on the reverse indicating that it was minted at the town of Kajiki, while still using the inscription of the Hongwu Emperor of Ming China. Some Shichūsen would also bear the inscriptions of coins from the Song dynasty, although it was not uncommon for many coins to simply be recasts and copies of older Song and Ming dynasty coins in the form of Iutsushi or by simply adding extra carvings on existing circulating Chinese coins.
Bitasen refers to the Shichūsen coinage produced in Japan by the nobility and private local mints, and not by the imperial government or before the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate which were often poor in appearance, as well as damaged and worn out imported Chinese coins.
Over time these coins would become damaged, and this made sellers more discriminating in what coins they would accept at face value, often accepting them only at ¼ of a good quality coin. Though Chinese coins would continue to circulate in Eastern Japan, the confusion and chaos caused by the Bitasen coinage caused rice to replace copper coinage in Western Japan. From 1608 onwards it was illegal to pay with Bitasen, and the shogunate opened more mines for the production of copper, silver, and gold coinages. Despite this, however, Bitasen continued to circulate within Japan, but from 1670 the Eiraku Tsūhō was completely prohibited from circulation and depreciated in favour of the Kan'ei Tsūhō.

''Kan'ei Tsūhō''

In 1636, the Kan'ei Tsūhō coin was introduced by the government of the Tokugawa shogunate as a means to standardise copper coins and keep up a sufficient supply of copper coinage, being the first government minted copper coin in 700 years, despite this however they were introduced in the Mito domain 10 years prior during the 3rd year of the Kan'ei era. These coins would become the daily currency of the common people and would be used for small payments. Due to the isolationist policies of the Tokugawa shogunate the outflow of currency halted and Kan'ei Tsūhō coins would continue to stay the main coin circulating in Japan, Kan'ei Tsūhō were minted for 230 years despite the fact that the Kan’ei era ended in 1643, Kan'ei Tsūhō coins would continue to bear the Kan’ei legend, even when a new denomination of the coin was introduced a century later, though they weren't all uniform as the shogunate outsourced the mintage to regional and local merchants who would cast them at varying weights and sizes, as well as occasionally having local mint marks, by the 1650s 16 private mints were opened for the production of Kan'ei Tsūhō coins all over Japan. Kan'ei Tsūhō produced before 1688 are referred to as “old Kan’ei” and are recognisable by their similar calligraphic styles making them hard to differentiate from one another, meanwhile Kan'ei Tsūhō coins produced after 1688 tend to be more diverse in calligraphic styling, and the 4 mon denomination has waves on its reverse making it easily distinguishable from other coins.
From 1738 government authorised the manufacture of iron Kan'ei Tsūhō 1 mon coins, and in 1866 iron 4 mon Kan'ei Tsūhō were authorised. While iron coins were being minted the quality of copper coins would decrease due to frequent debasements.

Export

As Bitasen coins were no longer allowed to circulate within Japan, Japanese traders started selling them on foreign markets for profits, especially on the Vietnamese market where a huge influx of Eiraku Tsūhō and Kan'ei Tsūhō coins from Japan made the Japanese mon the de facto currency of the region. The large export of Japanese coins to Vietnam during this period mostly happened on Red seal ships.
YearsAnnual number of Red seal ships going to Northern VietnamAnnual number of Red seal ships going to Southern Vietnam
1604-160559
1606-161029
1611-1615326
1616-1620922
1621-162567
1626-163035
1631-163599

From 1633 the Tokugawa government adopted the isolationist Sakoku policy. The Shogunate however opened up the seaport of Nagasaki to export with the Dutch East India Company and Chinese merchant ships from Southeast Asia, the Japanese merchants who were now prohibited from exporting mon coins directly to Vietnam used the Dutch traders as middlemen and exported between 1633 and 1637 around 105,835 strings of 960 Eiraku Tsūhō and Kan’ei Tsūhō coins to Vietnam, and from 1659 this continued with the Nagasaki trade coins which were specifically minted for foreign markets, this is why they were escribed with Song dynasty inscriptions as coins from the Song dynasty were already circulating in Southeast Asia and the populace had already become accustomed to them. The trade of mon coins stopped however after the Shogunate banned the export of copper in 1715.

Inflation during the Bakumatsu

In 1708 the Tokugawa shogunate introduced the Hōei Tsūhō which had a face value of 10 mon, which lead to the coin being discontinued very shortly after it started circulating as it wasn't accepted for its nominal value.
However, in 1835 the Tokugawa shogunate tried issuing a larger denomination copper coin again with the Tenpō Tsūhō 100 mon coin which this time only contained five and a half times the amount of copper in a 1 mon coin, but was accepted nonetheless. The introduction of this denomination caused large scale inflation comparable to that of caused by the 100 wén coin minted by the Qing dynasty in 1853, or the 100 mun coin issued by the Kingdom of Joseon in 1866. The reason for the change in mentality was the scarcity of copper which had earlier forced the Japanese to mint iron coins breaking the previously established tri-metallic system. The concurrent circulation of 1, 4, and 100 mon coins caused for a chaotic reaction from the market as did widespread circulation of forged coinage.
Another major cause for inflation was that from 1859 local Daimyō started minting their own coinage often with high denominations to increase the money supply or to get more gold and silver for their low copper supplies, in 1862 this inspired Daimyō Shimazu Nariakira to produce Tenpō Tsūhō derivatives in the form of 100 on Ryūkyū Tsūhō coins and even ½ Shu Ryūkyū Tsūhō coins under the pretence of minting coins for their vassal Ryukyu Kingdom, this proved profitable for the Satsuma domain.

Stringing of coins

Mon coins were holed, allowing them to be strung together on a piece of string.
In the Edo-period of Japan, stringed-together coins received a small discount when presented like this. E.g. for 100 Mon payment: if those 1 Mon coins were all tied in a row, discount given was 4 mon, so 96 stringed coins of 1 mon were accepted at par with 100 mon. Similar discounts existed probably for other bulk payments with small coinage in stringed form.

List of Japanese mon coins

During the history of the Japanese mon, many different coins with different inscriptions were cast, the main coins cast by the central government were:
InscriptionKyūjitaiShinjitaiYear of introduction
Nengō
DenominationImage
Keichō Tsūhō慶長通寳慶長通宝1606Keichō 111 mon
Genna Tsūhō元和通寳元和通宝1616Genna 21 mon
Kan’ei Tsūhō寛永通寳寛永通宝1626
1768 		Kan'ei 5
Meiwa 5 		1 mon
4 mon
Hōei Tsūhō寳永通寳宝永通宝1708Hōei 510 mon
Tenpō Tsūhō天保通寳天保通宝1835Tenpō 6100 mon
Bunkyū Ēhō文久永寳文久永宝1863Bunkyū 34 mon

Many Japanese domains produced their own currency which happened chaotically, so that the nation's money supply expanded by 2.5 times between 1859 and 1869, leading to crumbling money values and soaring prices.
These coins were often produced with the name of the domain or province on them, the mon coins produced by domains are:
InscriptionKyūjitaiShinjitaiDomainImage
Sendai Tsūhō仙臺通寳仙台通宝Sendai
Hosokura tō hyaku細倉當百細倉当百Sendai
Isawa Tsūhō膽澤通寳胆沢通宝Sendai
Tetsuzan Tsūhō鐵山通寳鉄山通宝Morioka
Hakodate Tsūhō箱館通寳箱館通宝Matsumae
Dōzan Tsūhō銅山通寳銅山通宝Kubota
Ashū Tsūhō阿州通寳阿州通宝Tokushima
Tosa Tsūhō土佐通寳土佐通宝Tosa
Chikuzen Tsūhō 筑前通寳 - 當百筑前通宝 - 当百Fukuoka
Ryūkyū Tsūhō 琉球通寳 - 當百琉球通宝 - 当百Satsuma
Ryūkyū Tsūhō 琉球通寳 - 半朱琉球通宝 - 半朱Satsuma

Currencies with the same etymology