Japanese Koban

About Japanese Koban

An oval gold coin of the Edo period. Featured the value and mint marks stamped on a thin gold plate. The koban system was complex, with gold, silver, and copper coins circulating simultaneously at floating exchange rates. By the 19th century, koban had been debased many times. When Commodore Perry arrived in 1853, the debasement of the koban was one sign of Tokugawa Shogunate economic decline. The current value of an original koban is thousands of dollars.