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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;satootoko, post: 206643, member: 669&quot;]I&#039;m afraid that Jacobs &amp; Vermeule, authors of <i>Japanese Coinage</i>, 2d Ed. 1972, and my Beautiful Bride are among the many, many authorities who disagree with your conclusion Aidan, and agree with gxseries and me.</p><p><br /></p><p>First, my BB (a college graduate in Japan before I stole her away from her family shortly after the Korean War) read the obverse characters (top to bottom, right to left) as Kan-ei Tsu-ho.&nbsp; Since you admit that you can&#039;t read the characters, please verify her ability to do so by comparing dimkasmir&#039;s photo with the picture of a Kan-ei Tsu-ho 1 Mon on p.779,&nbsp; of the 19th Century Krause <i>Standard Catalog of World Coins</i> 2002 3rd Ed.&nbsp; The Kan-ei Tsu-ho era was more or less contemporaneous with the period that Tokugawa Iyeoshi was Shogun, during the reigns of the last two Emperors of the Edo Period, Ninko and Komei.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The &quot;Gan&quot; or &quot;Gen&quot; mint mark on the reverse is among the few Kanji characters which I can read myself..&nbsp; Krause agrees with Jacobs &amp; Vermeule that this was the Osaka mint&#039;s mark.&nbsp; Jacobs &amp; Vermeule further ID the mint as having been in the Kampa area of Osaka.&nbsp; The coin is No. K308 in their numbering system.&nbsp; They date the coin as having been cast c1740, which was early in the Kan-ei Tsu-ho era.</p><p><br /></p><p>In <i>Modern Japanese Coinage</i>, 2d Ed. 1978, Mike Cummings translates the Meiji Emperor&#039;s law converting Japan&#039;s coinage from cast Mon, Shu, Bu, etc., to western-style milled coins.&nbsp; Under that statute the new Sen denomination was valued at 50 Sen=500 Mon, making the Mon equal to 1 Rin (1/10 of a Sen or 1/1000 of a Yen).&nbsp; Since the Yen had the same silver weight as a Morgan Dollar, the Mon&#039;s value was fixed at one US mil (1/10 cent).</p><p><br /></p><p>All of my other references, including the annual Japanese Numismatics Dealers Association catalogs, agree with the ones already cited.</p><p><br /></p><p>BTW a single character at the top (in medal orientation) of a cash coin reverse is only found on Japanese coins and Korean coins produced under Japanese hegemony/rule.&nbsp; After reviewing both Schjoth and Fisher&#039;s Ding, I have found no depictions of Chinese coins having only Kanji characters on the obverse and either plain or one-character reverses.</p><p><br /></p><p>Unfortunately for dimkasmir&#039;s pocketbook, Kan-ei Tsu-ho coins were cast in huge numbers, and had a relatively high survival rate, so they have very little monetary value, even in that relatively high grade. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie3" alt=":(" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>That said, the color in the picture looks more like iron than brass.&nbsp; If it is, in fact, iron in that rust-free condition, it could be worth several dollars. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie3" alt=":(" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Edited to add:</b> gxseries, thank you&nbsp; <img src="http://www.cosgan.de/images/more/bigs/c017.gif" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> for that wonderful link! <img src="http://www.cosgan.de/images/more/bigs/a063.gif" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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