徳川期小額金銀貨 (<第五十九回大会特集号>徳川期貨幣の経済史 : 小額貨幣を中心として)
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概要
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It is the purpose of this paper to focus on gold and silver coins, not on the standard coins but especially on fractional ones in the latter part of the Tokugawa period, and to show how they were introduced, and hence their significance in the Tokugawa monetary system. It is usually understood that the gold coin was koban and the silver chogin. Chogin was a currency by weight. In the late eighteenth century, for the purpose of rebuilding national economy and supplying more currency in circulation, the bakufu minted "Meiwa nanryo 2-shu ban". Despite the fact that it was a silver coin, it was currency not by weight but by tale equal to the gold coin. With this Meiwa nanryo, moreover, the de facts gold standard was established in Japan because it was the subsidiary coin to the gold coin-koban. The year was 1772. As the bakufu was troubled continuously by financial straits, it applied the idea of Meiwa nanryo to the gold coin. The bakufu minted many more fractional gold coins as subsidiary to koban in order to get an extra (deme) revenue. But by dint of the contradiction between the standard and subsidiary in the gold coin system, Gresham's law went into action. Society in the eighteenth century was throwe into confusion by these gractional gold and silver coins. One ryo was 4.1 momme, which was equal to 15.37 grain gold in weight at the start of the Tokugawa monetary system in the Keicho period, but the ratio went down to 1.5 grams at the final stage of the Tokugawa period. This decrctase in fineness of the gold coins was caused in large part by the fractional coins. This gold parity of one ryo was succeeded as the gold parity of the yen by the Meiji government.
- 1991-07-30