Mikane Jinja
御金神社
Nakagyo, Kyoto, Kyoto · Shinto shrine
A tiny shrine to the deity of metals with a gold-leafed torii, wedged into a Kyoto residential street — and the coin-washing ritual the internet sends you here to perform is not one it actually endorses.
Mikane Jinja is small enough to walk past. It has no forecourt; the gold-leafed torii opens straight onto a narrow residential street in Nakagyo, and the whole precinct is perhaps the size of a large room.
The principal deity is Kanayamahiko, guardian of metals, mines and minerals — gold, silver and copper. That is the original association, and it is broader than it now looks: the shrine's own page lists the development of metalworking and related industries alongside money luck. Over time the metal became money, and the requests narrowed to finance, securities, investment, business growth, and, quite openly, lottery wins.
It is also one of the clearest cases we have found of a shrine being misrepresented by the English- and Japanese-language internet at once — see the etiquette note below.
Which kami is enshrined here
- Kanayamahiko-no-Mikoto 金山毘古命
- The principal kami: guardian of all metals, mines and minerals — gold, silver and copper. The shrine's own wording.
- Amaterasu-Omikami 天照大神
- The sun goddess, co-enshrined here.
- Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto 月読神
- The moon deity, co-enshrined here.
Take part
What you can actually do here
Fuku-tsutsumi mamori — the shrine's signature item, a cloth amulet pressed with gold leaf, meant to hold your bankbook or new banknotes. The shrine stresses that each is leafed by hand, so stock is limited and it sells out often.
A naming warning: the shrine calls it 福包み守り. The name fukuzaifu ("fortune wallet") and the ¥2,000 price you will see quoted come from third-party blogs and resale listings, not from the shrine, which publishes no price. The shrine also states it sells no amulets online and warns about imitations sold elsewhere.
Other items: a ginkgo-leaf ema and amulet drawing on the sacred ginkgo on the grounds, a gamaguchi-purse-shaped amulet, and an omikuji that uniquely includes a dai-dai-kichi — a "great great blessing" lot above the usual top result.
Etiquette
Where this place differs
Washing coins in the purification basin is not this shrine's practice. Its own wording is careful rather than prohibitive: the basin is for cleansing your hands and mouth, and purifying money there is not the form of worship the shrine sets out. It never tells you not to — but it does not endorse it either, and the basket that people used for it is currently withdrawn as a hygiene measure.
Blogs and videos teach the opposite with great confidence. If money-washing is what you came for, it belongs to other shrines — Koami Jinja in Tokyo, for instance — not this one.
New to this? Read the full worship sequence first.
Goshuin
Getting the seal here
Offered, and the terms are unusually clear:
- Pre-written sheets only. The shrine states it will not write into your goshuincho.
- It does not sell goshuincho either.
- Available 10:00–16:00, when the office is staffed.
Price is not published.
Before you go
Outside 10:00–16:00 there is nobody there. The grounds stay open all day and night, but arrive early or late and you get the torii and nothing else — no amulets, no goshuin.
Photograph considerately. The shrine asks it plainly. There is no forecourt to stand in, so a queue of people photographing the golden torii means a queue standing in a residential street; the shrine also asks for consideration when photographing the torii or playing outdoor phone games nearby — its English page words this more firmly, as a request to refrain. This is somebody's neighbourhood.
Map
Sources
This page draws on the following sources, most of them in Japanese.
Others people visit for the same reasons
Fushimi Inari Taisha
伏見稲荷大社 · Fushimi, Kyoto
About ten thousand vermilion gates trace a tradition of dedication and gratitude to Inari.
Heian Jingu Shrine
平安神宮 · Kyoto, Kyoto
A 5:8-scale reconstruction of Kyoto's ancient State Hall, where the shrine courtyard is free and the four landscape gardens are a separate visit.
Hie Shrine
日枝神社 · Tokyo, Tokyo
A hilltop shrine in Nagatacho where the stairs, the escalator and the paired sacred monkeys are all part of the visit.
Koami Jinja
小網神社 · Chuo, Tokyo
A tiny Nihonbashi shrine with a reputation for strong luck built on two documented survivals — and a coin-washing well that is the reason most people come.