The monetary system of the Edo period – specifically Tokugawa Shogunate which yielded some of the largest and most stunning gold coins in the world in that period.
After the victory of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) in 1600, in the battle of Sekigahara, the country was united under one ruler who formed the Shogunate system. Tokygawa Ieyasu thus became the first Shogun. He was one of the three Great Unifiers of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow Oda subordinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi. For over 250 years, from 1600 to 1868, warlords known as Tokugawa Shoguns ruled over Japan which was divided into fiefdoms, each controlled by a local daimyo, or Samurai lord. Above mentioned Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) took upon himself the unification of the country’s coinage and exchange rates between different metals: gold, silver, copper. The coins symbolised the social class in the Japanese society of this period. Gold coins were used by the highest class
