Here's another counterstamp I can't find. On the reverse at about 1:00 on the corner of the shield there's a chop that looks like the Japanese word for 'Yen' [円]. Has anyone ever seen this before? It's for sale on eBay [seller: maria-ozawa]. Any Japanese specialists out there?
I don't think it's the character for Yen' [円] since that unit of currency wasn't adopted until 1870 or so. I think it looks like more like "ta" (田), which could be part of somebody's name or maybe part of a bank's name.
Wow I have never seen so many chop marks on one coin before. Most of the symbols are simple Kenji numbers. Traci
The "yen" was created by the 1871 Shinka Jorel ("New Coinage Act"), under which the earliest Japanese coins were issued with a Meiji 3 (1870) date. The counterstamp used earlier on Mexican 8 reales which became known as "Ansei Trade Dollars" with a value of 3 bu, was completely different. 円 is a simplified version of the character 園 which was used until well into the 20th Century, and would certainly not have been used as a chopmark when pillar dollars were circulating.
You're right about the simplified character for yen-- it came into use on coins and paper money after the Kanji reformation of the early post-war era.
On the enlarged view of the chop the character looks more like yen and not ta. The rounding of the strokes at the base of yen don't show features required for the character ta (Chinese tien "rice field"). Yen (Chinese simplified for yuan) seems more likely--especially if it is adjusted for a chop of some sort. Can see other characters: wood, large, loyal, large and some non descript marks. On right column clearly is wood-work-wood? Is it common to have such a "mess" of chops on one coin? Most of them seems to have been done with no purpose! More like play. Is this common?
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Considering the time in which chop marks were used in Japan (up to early 1870s), and the time that the abbreviated character for yen (円) was adopted (post-war era), I think it is more likely to be "ta", if this is a Japanese chopmark.
Considering that a chop mark can be added at any time, dates seem irrelavant, wouldn't you agree? Do you look at the enlarged view? the + in the "ta" is missing a stroke. And the square edges are absent. Relying on dating seems to force only "ta" as an option when visually "yen" seems more obvious. What is the date range of such chop marks--are people still adding them?
Chopmarked Mexican/Spanish coins circulated in Japan from the mid-late 19th Century until the very early 20th Century. In other parts of Asia they began circulating as early as the late 18th Century, into the early 20th Century. That's much of the same period that Japanese Yen, Japanese Trade Dollars, US and British Trade Dollars, and other silver crowns were being used based on weight. (Maria Theresa Thalers didn't get a whole lot of East Asian circulation.) A "chopmark" applied after the character 円 came into usage would have been made by someone creating a fantasy coin, not a merchant attesting to the purity and weight of the coin.
So the "chop mark" should reflect someone who attested to the authenticity of the piece and so the mark should be well known! So if it is not well known then it should be a fantasy chop--as you mentioned--and thus added later or outside the range of chop marks for authenticity, right? Could there be local chop marks which are still unknown as such? But perhaps were recongnized as such at the time? (Except for this case of "ta" which wasn't in use till later? Or perhaps this is a case of an early "original" use of it? Not likely, huh?
