JAPAN

Banknote

"Tokyo Kawase Company Note"

Silver 3 Momme 7 Bu 5 Rin

(1869)

FRONT

・銀三匁七分五厘（3 monme 7 bu 5 rin of silver）

BACK

・以此札拾六枚換金札壹両

（Sixteen of these bills are worth 1 ryō）

・This note is believed to have been discarded due to a printing error. There is little evidence that it was ever used.

・In 1869 (Meiji 2), a trading company was established in Tokyo and Yokohama. A small-denomination note was temporarily needed in Tokyo Prefecture, so this bill was issued, with a total issuance of 534,210 ryō. On the front, the upper part displays the denomination within auspicious clouds and a phoenix, while the lower part bears the characters “Tsūshō-shi Shōsha”. The term “Kawase Company” referred to what we would call a bank today.

・The denomination of 3 monme 7 bu 5 rin of silver seems rather unusual, but it is exactly 1/16 of 60 monme, equivalent in value to 1 shu of gold—thus making it effectively a “1-shu gold note.”

・On the reverse, the characters “Use sixteen of these bills to exchange for 1 ryō” appear within designs of turtles, pine, bamboo, and plum, along with a vermilion seal. As an anti-counterfeiting measure, the note was printed using copperplate printing and featured an embossed “Shō” character in the center.

・This bill ceased to circulate in 1870 (Meiji 3) and was officially retired in 1871 (Meiji 4), becoming unusable in less than two years.

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