I found these coins, they appear to be yong lo coins 600 years old. any one know any thing about them
to CoinTalk atocha. It's always great to have a new member with an interest in Asian coins. I'm afraid my old eyes find your pictures too small for me to do a very good job of comparison with >>these<< genuine examples.
Welcome to the forum atocha(of 1622?) The bottom row, center piece is a 'Yung Lo Tong Bao' cash coin from China's Ming dynasty. But the others are Japanese cash coins from Edo period, like what gxseries said. They are the 'Kan Ei Tsu Hō' (寛永通寶) cash coins, under 'kan ei' era of Edo. Kan Ei era spanned from 1624-1643, but this cash coin type was continuously struck till the end of Edo. Unfortunately your pic is too small for me to elaborate further.
Always glad when a thred like this comes up because I know Roy will have a post with an answer always enjoy your post like this:thumb:
yaun I was woundering if any one knows why the yaun on the japinese coins, is at the top, not the bottom.
The character read in Japanese as "en" (or "yen" when western tongues are trying to wrap around the sound) is positioned where the designers put it. An equally valid question is why the yuan (more common transliteration of the Chinese reading) is not at the top on Chinese/Korean/other Asian coins. BTW the character is at various positions on different coins minted since its adoption in 1867. and offhand I can't think of even one where the character is at the top of a coin.
Sorry to disappoint you, but that character is part of the date, not a denomination. 1 and 4 mon coins (which have not been used in Japan since the third year of the Meiji Reformation (1867) were differentiated by size, not by legend. The legend is read from top to bottom and right to left, and is too corroded to be sure what it says on that coin. The denomination "yen" was created by legislation effective in Meiji 3, and did not previously exist.
