Japan obsolete types non-precious date sets Meiji-Taisho-Showa

Working on compiling some partial date sets out of my loose Japanese coins.
Here a few photos of what I have so far:
5 yen-1 yen-50 sen


1 sen 1875-1887


1 sen 1913-1935


1 sen 1937-1945


10 sen (posted earlier)


I'll try to post some better photos of individual coins closer up by type.
Please let me know if there's any type/date or comparisons you'd like a better look at.
Ones without prices listed were almost all junk bin finds.
Still need to sort through the 2 sen, 5 sen, 1/2 sen, 5 rin, 1 rin, etc.
Thanks for looking. Please post any obsolete Japan coin types if you wish!

 

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10 Yen, milled edge type:
These were made from Showa 26-33 (1951-58, none made 1956)
I only have Showa 26-30 so far. The last 2 years are a little lower mintages, while the early years were 100~500 million minted.


I grab these whenever I find them for 10 cents, which is only a penny or so over face value. If I ever have too many, I guess I can buy a soda or something from a vending machine next time I go back to Japan. (Do vending machines still take coins in Japan?) Distribution I have almost exactly matches what you would expect from the mintages: a ton of years 27, 28 and 29; a few of 26 and 30; and none of the lower mintage years 32 and 33


From 1959-present, a smoothed-edged version was minted. Shown bottom left for comparison (Showa 56 = 1981, right is reeded Showa 27 = 1952).

 

5 yen obsolete types (not counting gold 5 yen, alas):
Top row was made only for 2 years, Showa 23-24 (1948-49).
It has the diet building on the obverse, pigeon on the reverse.

Bottom row is very similar to the modern 5 yen, but the characters are in a brush stroke style rather than a block style. Honestly, I think the brush stroke version looks a lot prettier. Minted from Showa 24-33 (1949-58) with a gap from 29-31. The last 4 years of the series are lower mintages and I've yet to find one by chance in a junk bin. I have Showa 24-26 here (1949-51).

 

Nice collection!

 

The brass 1 yen is a pretty short series: Showa 23-25 (1948-1950)
None of the dates are particularly rare or expensive, so I should be able to complete the set pretty easily. But... all the ones I have are of the same date: Showa 24.
It was replaced by the aluminum 1 yen in 1955-present (Showa 30-).


The aluminum 1 yen is not a particularly beloved coin in Japan, as far as I have heard. Most stores and restaurants give prices in round numbers, and the pretax price is set so that the numbers come out even after tax. When they raise the consumption tax, it messes everything up, though, to people's annoyance.

1 yen coins can float. They are only 1 gram, and are quite thin. Aluminum is 2.7 times denser than water, but if you set one down right, the meniscus will support it from the surface tension.


Brass and silver 1 yen coins are hopeless, though.

 

An almost complete date set of postwar base-metal 50 sen.
The larger type (bottom L) was made in Showa 21-22 (1946-7). The Showa 22 were never released to circulation and are very expensive and hard to find.
The smaller type (bottom R) were minted 2 years: Showa 22-23 (1947-48).
After that, the 50 sen denomination was discontinued entirely, the end of the last subsidiary denomination of the yen. The other denominations ended in:
1 rin -- 1884
5 rin -- 1919
1 sen -- 1945
2 sen -- 1884
5 sen -- 1945
10 sen -- 1946
20 sen -- 1911
The postwar 50 sen are interesting to me as transitional types. The characters still read right-to-left on these, and the simplified version of the character "sen" has not been adopted yet (銭 vs. 錢). Simplified Kanji were introduced around 1946.


Top row are silver 50 sen. I love this series, so I had to throw them in for comparison. I think there are 4 types of Meiji 50 sen and 2 different Taisho types. I hope I can complete a type set of silver 50 sen some day...

 

I only own a couple Sen pcs of Japanese stuff ...and I really don't get into Japan at all ...but when you put all that together you did really really well. Not sure how far along you were....but your Japan collection should be pretty healthy and worthy of adding some rare examples now.

Good job on this purchase though.

 

Thanks! I was a dual-major in Japanese during college, and worked as a researcher in Japan for half a year in grad school, so I have a lot of affinity for Japan, people and culture. My wife was raised by her grandparents, who had lived through WW2 in Mainland China, so I imagine they would have had a different perspective...

Speaking of simplified characters, I found this book on my shelves as an example of the older type. It's Botchan, by Natsume Soseki (1906). I picked it up around 1994 at a used book store, but I think this printing was from 1957. (40 yen at that time!) For some reason they kept the older-style characters for this edition. For example, school is "學校" instead of the modern "学校". The little phonetic text on the right side of some of the kanji are furigana. They give the pronunciation. This was probably a student edition, for readers who would not have known how to read some of the the harder characters yet. I can probably read about 1000-1300 characters (though I am quite rusty), which it enough to get through easy stuff or adult-level stuff with a dictionary and some time. But reading something literary like this for fun is beyond me.

And some more coin photos, just for fun, showing the devolution of the 50 sen:

 

I really enjoy Japanese coins and one of the first coins in my collection is a 50 sen that my father found in Okinawa when he was stationed there.

When I was in Tokyo a few years ago the smallest coins I saw in circulation were 5 and 10 yen coins.

 

I don't think the 50 yen denomination was ever made out of precious metals. The Meiji/Early Taisho gold coinage was made in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 yen. After WW2, the yen had depreciated enough that larger base-metal denominations were needed. The 50 yen started in Showa 30 (1955).

The first series lasted 4 years and had no center hole. I have Showa 32 (1957) and 31 (1956) out of the Showa 30-33 set. There is a second type which I don't have at all from Showa 34-41 (1959-1966). It adds the now-standard center hole, but kept the size at 25 mm as opposed to the modern 21 mm holed 50 yen (right). The weight dropped from 5.5 to 5.0 grams between the first and second type, so I guess a hole weighs -0.5 grams.

In general, coins in denominations with 5 (5, 50) as the leading digit have holes, and the ones with a leading digit of 1 (1, 10, 100) are unholed. This makes them easier to distinguish by feel for the vision-impaired. The 500 yen is an exception, though, and never had a hole.

50 yen coins don't turn up in junk bins often because they are worth 40-50 cents face, depending on the prevailing exchange rates. Naturally, if I do see one for 10 or 25 cents US, I pick it out, but that happens rarely. If I want to complete the set for these it looks like I'll have to actually make an effort and look for coins individually by date.

 

I do have this on my watch list right now. It caught my eye one night ...someday i might circle back around on it when i feel like doing the research end of this hobby. Work sucks right now so the little time off i have i would rather look at coins and buy known examples.

I know absolutely nothing about this coin....but it has nice eye appeal its on ebay right now.

 

One of my favorite types--the Meiji Era 2 sen.

It's a relatively small series, from Meiji 6-17 (1877-1884)
There are two types, with blocky scales from years 6-10 and V-shaped scales from years 10-17. The year 10 was made in both types, but mine is a blocky one.
There was also a not-for-circulation issue in year 25 (1892), which I imagine would be very expensive if one ever saw one, which I haven't.

I have, from L to R by rows, years 8, 10, 13, 15 and 16. Two are of the block scales type (8 and 10) and 3 of the V-scales (13, 15 and 16). The first year of issue (Meiji 6 = 1873) is lower mintage, and is quite a bit pricier than the other regular-circulation issues. I haven't seen a year 6 yet. Most of the rest cost me $2-6 packaged, or occasionally 25 cents if I am luck and find one unpackaged.



I have no duplicates except for year 15 (1882), where I have like 6 of them.
So if anyone needs a Meiji 15 2 sen for a type set or something, let me know and I can hook you up, I guess.

 

Looks like a 1 shu gin. I have a couple of them. They are mostly from the Tokugawa Era (1603-1867), though there may be some older ones too. They are mostly not unreasonably expensive, but they go for a significant amount over silver value. I think which of the little border flowers is upside down tells you something about the year or issuer. I'd have to check Hartill, but I can look it up if you are interested. That one has a greenish color compared to what I usually see. I belive this series is widely faked, so I'd be reluctant to buy them on Ebay unless I knew how to authenticate them better than I do myself.

 

I have too many interests in numismatics, otherwise I'd own Oban and Koban gold coins, with a particular favour to the ones that were auctioned off a few years ago in their original sealed packets from the 1850's. The pre-Yen Japanese and then the Yen coins are quite fascinating. Curiously I found a 500 yen coin leftover from my visit to Tokyo - it is a fairly high value ie $4.50-$5.00 coin.

When you get into Japanese paper money - another amazing area oft overlooked, the so-called bookmark money of the Shogun era and then the first Yen banknotes were printed by Continental Banknote in the USA in the 1870s and are remarkably similar to contemporary US dollar bills from that era.

 

Continuing on my attempt at piecing together a modern (186 obsolete-type, base-metal date set. There are more gaps than coins in my "date set" but here are the smaller than 1 sen denominations:

Bottom L: 1 Rin (1/1000 Yen) Minted Meiji 6-10, 13, 15-17 (1873-1884)
I only have year 16 (1883). Some of the dates are quite scarce, and a few were made in 1892 but never released into circulation.

Bottom R: 5 Rin (1/200 Yen) Minted Taisho 5-8 (1916-1919)
All 4 years are common, but I only have 6 and 8 so far.

Top: 1/2 Sen (1/200 Yen) Same value as the later 5 Rin coins, as 10 Rin = 1 Sen
Minted Meiji 6-10 (1873-1877) with "square" scales;
Meiji 10, 12-21 (1877-1888) with "V-shaped" scales.
I have Meiji 10, 15, 17 and 19. The earlier, "square-scales" Meiji 10 1/2 sen is very expensive. Mine is too worn to make out the scales clearly, but I assume it is the more common "V-scales" variety. You can see both types in my 2 sen pictures above, which went through a similar style change in Meiji 10.