Mon (Japanese coin)
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The mon (文) was a currency in Japan from about 1636 to 1871. The mon was part of the effort by the Tokugawa Shoguns to create a unified currency system, and was modelled after the imported Chinese copper coins (e.g. Huang Song Yuan Bao, Xi Ning Yuan Bao). The mon coins gradually deteriorated in quality due to the inflationary minting of copper coins and at the end of the Edo Period a 100-mon coin actually contained material worth only 5.5 mons of the copper coin. The coin was replaced in 1871 by the yen.