![A Gold Oban [Large Stamped Piece]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2012/CSK/2012_CSK_06071_0118_000(a_gold_oban_large_stamped_piece_edo_period112544).jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Oban were made of hammered gold with a face value of 10 ryo (ounces). The earliest oban were made in the 1580s, when the feudal lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536/7-98) co-operated with wealthy merchants in the Kansai district of central Japan and monopolized Japan's metal mines. He then began to mint gold coins of fixed quality.
With no inscription the earliest oban were open to forgery, and so to get around this problem inscriptions and stamp marks were added. The signature of the Goto family (the hereditary superintendents of the mint) were handwritten on the oban, along with paulownia crests and flower stamps.
For a similar example in the British Museum see www.britishmuseum.org accession number CM 1947-6-4-3.
With no inscription the earliest oban were open to forgery, and so to get around this problem inscriptions and stamp marks were added. The signature of the Goto family (the hereditary superintendents of the mint) were handwritten on the oban, along with paulownia crests and flower stamps.
For a similar example in the British Museum see www.britishmuseum.org accession number CM 1947-6-4-3.