Treaty ports · 1854–1860

Foreign-Trade Monetary Crisis

Time-bound exchange rules, bullion relationships, and market outcomes explain the crisis better than one universal conversion rate.

開港と貨幣危機

表Exact obverse unavailable 裏Exact reverse unavailable

Core routes: 15
Issue studies: 12
Cleared image pairs: 10
Indexable routes: 27

Context

Historical and monetary setting

Same-type and same-weight treaty exchange ignored fineness differences. Foreign merchants could convert silver dollars into domestic silver units and then obtain Japanese gold at a relationship far below international bullion conditions.

Identification

How to classify the evidence

Read every rate with its date, place, rate type, and source. Official, treaty, bullion, and realized market records are not interchangeable.

Evidence boundary

What this page does not claim

The page does not claim one crisis-wide rate or an unsupported total for exported gold.

Time-bounded evidence

Exchange and bullion relationships

Official, treaty, market, and bullion records remain separate.

Date	Place	Type	Official relationship	Market or bullion relationship	Boundary
1854–1858	Shimoda and early treaty-port negotiations	official	1 Mexican dollar = 1 Ichibu-gin	—	An early official convention; it must not be projected across the entire crisis.
1859–1860	Opened treaty ports	treaty	1 Mexican dollar = 3 Ichibu-gin	—	Same-type and same-weight exchange operated despite differing fineness and exposed the gold-silver mismatch.
late 1850s	Japan	bullion	—	approximately 1:4.6 to 1:5 gold-to-silver	A scholarly/official historical approximation, not a universal posted exchange rate.
late 1850s	international trade	bullion	—	approximately 1:15 to 1:16 gold-to-silver	An international bullion relationship used to explain incentives, not a single treaty-port retail quote.
1859–1860	treaty-port exchange and export	market	4 Mexican dollars exchanged for 12 Ichibu-gin	3 Koban could obtain about 12 Mexican dollars abroad	A museum teaching example of the incentive chain, not an estimate of total exported gold.

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Related transition references

Bakumatsu and Early Meiji Coinage Foreign Silver in Japan New Currency Act of 1871 Early Meiji Gold Coinage Early Meiji Silver Coinage Early Meiji Copper and Bronze Coinage Japanese era-date guide

Evidence

Sources and scope

These links support the claims on this page. Source authority does not imply permission to republish source images.

History of Japanese Currency: Opening of the Country and Gold Outflow Bank of Japan Currency Museum

Treaty-port exchange, Mexican dollars, gold outflow, Man’en reform, transitional currency, and the 1871 decimal system.

Open source

Finance history article on the Bakumatsu gold crisis Ministry of Finance, Japan

Comparative gold-silver ratios and the Man’en Koban response.

Open source