Featured The first official circulating coins of Japan. The Twelve Antique Coins of Japan

Yeah.. These were issued during the Tang Dynasty. Their influence was very strong during this time from clothing, text, infrastructure and even religion. If you look at the 開 character, it is an exact copy of the Tang Kaiyuan particularly on the Shin Wado

 

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I've got an abundance of these.

 

These are the late Tokugawa early Meiji official issues. They come in smaller Shu 朱 and Bu 分 denominations.

 

They are electrum actually.. personally I prefer electrum over pure gold...milder and less jarring visually

 

real cool stuff I have a pair of these trade cash, now I am going to have to pull them out a figure out the history.

 

@Loong Siew - Excellent post. Can you illustrate an example of the Fuuhonsen for us?

 

congrats Loong on this being a featured article

 

Thanks @Ardatirion. Here is a picture of the specimens in the museum.

 

Thanks @gregarious .. I appreciate it .

 

welcome @kkathy10

 

Thank you very much. It was indeed a great honour..

 

Haha.. it's a tough battle.. but a nice friendly match..

 

Thanks for the article! Now I know about the "twelve ancient coins" of Japan!

 

Welcome.. for non Eastern coin collectors, it is easy to mistaken them as Chinese

 

As a quick general rule of thumb for "cash" sorting if the back is nearly blank I put it aside in hopes that it is Japanese versus Chinese. This is a layman's opinion but it serves me well. As to the term samurai money I was told that the samurai used
the square holed coins as handles on their swords. They would loosen the cord and remove coins for their needs. In recent years older swords in poorer condition have been dismantled and searched for rare dates then reassembled with common and damaged coins. Since even a common old samurai sword costs in the neighborhood of $800 to $1000 that is a game not for the faint of heart. Presumably any silver or copper coins without a center hole would have been carried in a pouch or a rolled up cloth tucked in the sash. My goal is a type set of each Asian and ancient country. I prefer worn samples. Eventually I'll make a want list and a list of my duplicates for trade. No telling when. I have in excess of 100 books and pamphlets ready to type and release now that I'm retired. In coins or exonumia next up will be a catalog of veterans club issues of north American countries issued world wide. I wrote the first volumes of the encased coins lists for Illinois and Indiana for ACE but both have been subsumed with permission into more modern editions. After the token catalog will come a bibliography of treasure hunting books then over 100 treasure hunting and treasure research pamphlets. All will be for electronic download followed up by print on demand.

 

I am afraid that falls under the heading "old wives tale" Harley. Let me hasten to say that _ may _ have happened, but I have not encountered that in fifty six years of collecting and researching Nihonto (Japanese Samurai swords -- I lived in Japan during the early 1960s). I do not want to pursue this by hijacking this thread or causing "thread drift", but I thought it might be of general interest and contribute to the discussion -- so I will try and make this a "one time" subject post.

Please visit my page: http://jp29.org/nihkoshover.htm -- I think it explains why I think it would be most unlikely for coins to have been used as part of the handles on Nihonto.

During the early 1960s in Japan an old sword period (AD 900-1596) short sword (Tanto) blade in a plain wooden storage scabbard (Shirasaya) made by a known sword smith (kaji) and in good polish cost somewhere around 29,000 yen/$95 (prevailing exchange rate=360 yen to the US dollar) -- just like this blade: http://jp29.org/nihtantokanekado.htm - that blade today would probably sell in the $2000 to $3000 range. Today a Koto blade in a shirasaya by a famous maker -- even contemporaneously re-worked/re-purposed with natural blemishes -- similar to the one here: http://jp29.org/nihnagamaki.htm -- may sell for several thousand dollars. Fully mounted (in koshirae) koto period blades by famous makers in full polish often sell in the multiple hundred thousand dollar range these days.

 

Oh, and if anyone thinks fakery/"doctoring" is a problem with ancient coins, you haven't seen anything until you enter the realm of Nihonto!