Japan Trade Dollar

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Mintage was only 97,000 for 1875

 

Nice; I've always liked these!

 

Me too. I love Pacific Trade Dollars. I'm going to get better pictures of my British Trade Dollar and French Indo China Trade Piastre

 

Myself included. I need one to go with my other trade dollars, but then I need most of them. I only have the British and French. I suspect the U.S. trade dollar will be my most expensive purchase of the group.
Does anybody know how many different trade dollars actually exist, which countries, etc.?

 

Wikipedia shows China, France, Japan, UK and US
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dollar

 

Thanks. Well I'm 2/5 of the way there.
That was a fast reply. I can see why you're called 'Hot Wheels'.

 

Concur with the above article. I would add that though the Straits Settlement Dollar, Cap and Ray 8 real from Mexico, and the Philippine Peso are not labelled as Trade Dollars, because of their popularity and proximity you see a lot of them with chop marks, so I added them to my Pacific Trade Dollar collection as honorary members!
Also, who doesn't love big flashy world crowns?

 

You're absolutely correct. I know I do.And let's not forget the Spanish Pillar Dollar or the Escudo. At various times they were used as trade dollars.
Wasn't every Spanish speaking country in the Western hemisphere at some time a colony of Spain?

 

In part, maybe. There's probably some odd edge cases like Easter Island. Not it's own country, never colonized by Spain, but has Spanish as an official language and controlled by a South American Country (Chile)

I wonder if there is a high degree of overlap between coins commonly chop marked and coins that had effective trade dollar status...
Below: Mexico, Carlos IIII, 8 Reales, 1791, chops

 

I believe so, based on years of collecting, but I could be wrong

 

I have two Japanese trade dollars.

The first I picked up at Ginza Coins in Tokyo. (I go in there quite often) 45,000yen, or about $415 USD






You can't see the colors in these two shots, so here it is in the sun, with colors slightly enhanced.


I like toning on my coins, while Japanese tend to like them clear silver color, so the toned coins are often cheaper in Japan, which suits me.



And this one, which seems to be perfect. It's silver, correct weight, size .....but I think it's possibly a fake.
I picked it up on ebay from a Japanese seller (or could be a foreigner living in Japan)

 

Japanese silver 1 yen coins were countermarked by the mints in Tokyo & Osaka, to be used effectively as trade dollars, so yes, there seems to be an overlap(the mark meant it was no longer to be used as currency in Japan.)
Also, Spanish/Mexican 8 reales started out as the defacto silver trading coin in China, and it seems that trade dollars were later created to formalize this fact.

Japanese 1 yen with countermark (Osaka) and there's a chopmark to the left:

 

Awesome coins Dnas!

 

That got me thinking about why trade dollars were issued by multiple countries in that time period. I think for all of the countries mentioned except Japan, it involved the switch from a silver or bimetallic standard to a gold standard.

Under a gold standard, it is undesirable to have full-bodied silver coinage. If the gold/silver price ratio changes, the silver coinage can be driven out of circulation if its metal value exceeds face value. So token silver is issued worth a little less than face as metal. However, in countries still on a silver standard, such as China in the 1800s and early 1900s, merchants will be reluctant to accept silver coinage as worth more than their metal value. The regional standard was the Spanish/colonial 8 reales.

To save the trouble of converting their coinage into Spanish dollars and taking a small loss on the currency conversion, many countries issued their own coinage of full-bodied silver specifically for trade with the Far East.

Examples:

UK (on a gold standard since 1821)
trade dollars issued from 1895-1935

US (Gold Standard since 1873)
Trade dollars issued 1873-1885

French Indochina Trade Piastre (French gold standard since 1870)
1885-1895 (27.215 g)
1895-1928 (27 g)
1931 (20 g)

Japan: (gold standard 1897)
Trade Dollar Meiji 7-10 = 1874-1877

Japan is the odd exception, as it was still on a silver standard when it issued its trade dollar coins in 1874-1877. Japan only switched to a gold standard in 1897, when victory in the Sino-Japanese war provided enough gold currency from indemnities to allow a smooth transition. Japan's reason was probably that the silver one yen was slightly lighter (26.96 g at .900 silver) than the prevailing Latin American dollar (27.07 g at .903 for Mexico at the time, for example). The one yen wouldn't have been accepted as a full-valued substitute, creating demand for a trade coin worth slightly more than the silver one yen.

Japan, being an isolated economy on an island, has a long history of getting shafted when its domestic gold/silver price differed from the world price. This had happened during the late Tokugawa Era, draining gold from the country alarmingly, which would have been a very recent memory when the trade dollar was introduced. That may have provided additional impetus for the Japanese government to not want to be at a disadvantage on exchange rate issues.

 

It's hard to know what was going on back then....
The British Trade Dollar was 26.95g, 0.900, so slightly lighter than the Japanese 1 Yen at 26.96g.... they could have been used interchangeably.

 

wow lovely japan trade dollar op! I'm jealous

 

One other point about WHY countries issued trade dollars.
Mostly, those countries needed to trade with China & Indo-China, so they needed to use a standard form of trade currency.

For example, in 1854, US steam ships of Commodore Perry arrived in Japan, and demanded that Japan trade with the US. He said that he would return in one year to sign a trade treaty. This caused chaos in Japan... some said they should fight to keep the foreigners out, but the Shogun (military leader of Japan) decided that Japan would trade. The Daimyo (samurai clan leaders) were split, and this caused to a chain-reaction, which led to revolt and the downfall of the feudal samurai class system, and the restoration of the Emperor as the military/political leader, not just the spiritual leader. Mutsuhito became emperor in 1867, and was restored to the military/political leader in 1868 (Meiji Restoration, as Emperor Meiji). Western style coinage was created in 1870. Although Mutsuhito became emperor in 1867, he was enthroned in 1868. So the first year coin in 1870 dates year 3 (1868=Yr1, 1869=Yr2, 1870=Yr3).

Japan needed standard currency to trade, so they produced trade dollars from their own silver, although Japanese yen were also used.
Since China would trade goods in silver, other countries also produced trade dollars for the purpose.
The difference in weight between trade dollars (Britain 26.95g, Japan & US 27.22g, France 27.15g, Mexico 8 Reales 27.07g + Japanese yen 26.96g) was probably difficult for some merchants to measure. US Trade Dollar vs British Trade Dollar = 1.27g, and it may not have made too much difference. The difference in price in today's silver prices is $20.64 vs $20.43, which is just over 1%.

 

I think all of those countries started using Trade Dollars for the same reason I like them : They're big and heavy and look really cool !!

 

To this day, some educated Japanese tell me that they were taken advantage of by foreigners who exchange their cheaper quality silver for the intrinsically higher valued Japanese gold and silver. Could this inferiority complex have led to the Japanese government after WWI to arm itself and set off to its own imperialistic endeavors in Asia only to result in the demise of such plans after WWII? I have always been intrigued with the politics and economics of Meiji period culminating through the early days of the Showa (Hirohito) reign.