Ryukyu Islands - Okinawa - Museum Gallery

November 2024

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Hanshu Ryuukyuu Tsuuhou - obverse is written Ryuukyuu Tsuuhou in seal script; reverse reads "han shu" in seal script.
These are relatively scarce. The edge has a character stamped, a bit off center, that can best be described as a cross w/double cross hatch (contact me for photo). Obtained from J. Lepzck (late 70's) so it's authentic. Be sure to see the exceptional associated 100 Mon piece.

The round Hanshuu Ryuukyuu Tsuuhou was ordered to circulate at the value of 248 mon, or twice the value of the 100 mon coin. However it weighed merely 8 monme or about 10 to 12 times the weight of the average one mon coin. Han means "half" and "shu" is a gold currency weight. Therefore the Satsuma government was trying to command an exchange rate between copper currency and gold currency. Normally the relative exhange rates of silver, gold and copper currencies were unstable throughout Japan despite government attempts to decree them into one currency system. Thus although at one half shu this coin should have circulated at 32 coins per gold ryou (one koban coin), it is unlikely that it really did so.

source: Nihon Ginkou Chousakyoku ed., Zuroku Nihon no kahei, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Touyou Keizai Shinpousha, 1973), pp. 319-322. From Luke Robert's "East Asian Cash" website.