Kan'ei Tsūhō
Kan'ei Tsūhō ( Japanese 寛 永 通宝 ) are coins that were minted in Japan during the Edo period from 1626 to 1862.
In 1626 the merchant Satō Shinsuke ( 佐藤 新 助 ) received from the Shogunate and the Mito fiefdom permission to cast coins. These copper or bronze coins were 2.3 cm in diameter, had a wide and slightly raised edge on both sides and a square hole in the middle. On the front they bore the words 寛 永 通宝 'Kan'ei-Münze' and on the back the characters 三 '3' which refers to the Japanese year of introduction - Kan'ei 3 (1626).
In 1636 the state mint foundries Asakusa-Hashiba and Shiba-nawate in Edo , as well as Sakamoto (today part of Ōtsu ) in the province Ōmi took over the production and a year later eight more mint foundries followed in the whole country, whereby they circulated from one regional currency to the national one Means of payment were. The reverse of these was usually blank, although there are coins from the Kanbun era (1661–1672) and the Genroku era (1688–1704) that have the characters 文 bun or 元 gen on the reverse.
From 1768 a slightly larger version made of brass was issued for the first time with 2.8 cm, on the back of which a wave pattern was depicted, which can also be found on the " Bunkyū Eihō " coins. These brass coins were four times the value (4 mon ) of a copper Kan'ei coin and were in production until 1868.
There were also variants of the copper and brass coins made of iron with the same face value of 1 and 4 mon .
by Satō Shinsuke
Shiba Coin Foundry
Sakamoto coin foundry
from the Genroku era
Iron variant
