The new era name for the Emperor Naruhito was announced yesterday and it's "令和" or "Reiwa." That means next year's Japanese coins will probably have the date: "令和元年" or "the first year of Reiwa," pronounced "Reiwa gan'nen." Subsequent years will begin the usual counting: "令和二年" or "令和２年" and so on. An era change hasn't happened since 1989 when Akihito ascended to the throne after his father Hirohito died. So the Heisei, "平成," era will end this year.
I saw that this morning. I never knew that it had changed since Showa. Show(a)'s just how much I know....
Here's an updated chart from a different post from a few days ago. It covers Emperor era names for all modern (post-Meiji) Japanese coins: 明治 - Meiji (Mutsihito) 1867 - 1912 大正 - Taisho (Yoshihito) 1912 - 1926 昭和 - Showa (Hirohito) 1926 - 1989 平成 - Heisei (Akihito) 1989 - 2019 令和 - Reiwa (Naruhito) 2019 - sometime in the future Looking through the JNDA, I see that when the last changeover took place, the Japan mint issued two coins for that year. For 1989 I see coins dated both 昭和64年 and 平成元年, so perhaps the new 令和 coins will still come out this year? The Japan mint site shows coins dated 平成31年 for 2019 on its homepage, but maybe they're also planning on minting the new dates as well? I'll have to keep watching.
I would expect them to. Maybe someday I’ll get a set, but I’ve heard competition is always fierce, especially with something like this. Look at the 31 sets.
I hope so. The Japanese commems are a not-so-secret weakness of mine. I've got a request for someone going to Japan in April to look for one for me. One interesting factoid I learned relatively recently, era names did not always correlate just with the ascension of an Emperor. They would be named for other (political I suppose) reasons. Codifying it to relate just to the Emperor's reign was a new thing and part of the Meiji restoration.
I wish Dansco would do a new one of these! I have a virtual one at NGC and much as I'd like to update it to reflect the new coinage, 1. it involves slabbing literal pocket change (not that I haven't done that...) 2. if I mess with the set too much I'll lose the html formatting that it currently has, it's not much but I hate to lose it. That said whenever they get around to switching the custom sets to the new format I'll probably lose it anyway at which point I can add my varieties, the new eras, and maybe even my error coins. https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=15668
It just means I have to update my digital album... It was quite a bit of effort to get there https://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/japan_type_set_1870_current Issuu's resolution has dropped drastically - anyone else has any other recommendations?
Thanks for this update! I've added to my notes! And Stork, I followed the link to your website overall collections. What a treat! Well done, indeed!
