I was digging through some old stuff in the attic today with my wife and we came across these old Japanese coins she had gotten from her grandfather years ago. There's a sticker on the bottom saying 300+ years old, that he had written and put on there for reference. However, I'd like to know how old these coins are. I have a gold one, and a bronze one. The gold one has a .999 stamp on the back. The other is a bronze one. They each have the traditional markings on them. In the case it came in, there's 2 sheets of paper, but I can't read or speak Japanese, so I don't know what they say at all. I'm just wondering how much they were valued at, and how I could figure out the date on them. Thanks.
Quite so. And the date will probably be the year of the reign of the Emperor at the time the coin was issued.
I can't read a single Japanese character that I can't see! I also can't even guess whether something shaped like a gold koban is truly gold, or one of the many brass copies regularly sold in coin shops in Japan, without seeing it. In other words, fretboard is absolutely, positively, undoubtedly CORRECT! BTW, Koban are not dated, and it is necessary to analyze their markings to determine the approximate period of issue.
Can't be an original koban because they were NEVER stamped with 999 mark. Most likely post modern replica.
