Stumbled across this coin from a friend who says it is a family hand me down, haven't figured out too much about it so far apart from the characters 年五十治明 本日大 from what i've gathered the second set of characters stands for Dai Nippon and or great japan but am having a slight bit of trouble with the first set of characters I think it's Meiji era but not sure about these two 五十 looked up around and i'm assuming it means 50 but so far that's all i can figure out. The pictures are a bit blurry but any help would be immensely appreciated.
It's a bit of a shame. The older 1 yen coins are actually worth a bit these days but as a jewellery, I guess it has it's value.
The direction of text on Japanese coins changed in 1948, right to left became left to right, so it's easy to get confused because flipping the characters significantly changes their meaning. "五十" (gojuu) means "fifty" on modern coins, but "fifteen" (juugo) on pre-1948 coins. A further breakdown (in left to right): 明治 is Meiji, 十五 is fifteen, and 年 stands for year, so 明治十五年 ("Meiji juugo nen") just means "Fifteenth year of Meiji." Emperor Meiji was also known as Mutsuhito. And yes, as already stated, the coin pictured dates to 1882. The Meiji dragons, which extended only into 1 year of his son and successor, Taisho, are some of the most amazing coins ever minted, in my honest opinion.
The silver 1 yen coin has more history than what one would have thought. I only learned it quite recently. In 1897, the silver 1 yen coin is demonetized and is no longer legal tender when Japan adopted the gold standard. The most likely reason is because of the Sino-Japan war as it would have drained Japan's finance drastically. As a result, all circulating silver 1 yen coins were immediately culled from circulation and were countermarked with the gin sign to be exported to overseas like China, Taiwan and other Japanese colonies. These gin countermark meant that they were no longer redeemable in face value and cannot be re-exported back to Japan. There were strong signs to remove the dragon as it was deemed to have 'Chinese elements'. This is the reason why all the newer coinage no longer had the dragon design and had the raising sun emblem. That said, the silver yen coins came back in production in 1901 as it is likely that there were not much silver 1 yen coins left to be countermarked and demand would have exceeded supply. While there is a pattern of the silver 1 yen coin with the rising sun emblem - this did not come to fruition as it would have likely caused confusion with the traders / overseas market. It's an interesting food of thought that all 1 yen coins with the gin countermark and 1 yen coins struck after 1897 never circulated in Japan.
The Emperor's posthumous name is Emperor Meiji, named after the era (which was normal practice) "Meiji" or "enlightened reign". His personal name was Mutsuhito. The dragon 1 yen coins were only minted on one year of his son's reign, in Taisho year 3(1914). The first Japanese round coins(in the western fashion) were minted in 1870 (Meiji Year 3). They had BOTH the dragon and the rising sun, which only extended until the following year. From 1874-> 1914(with some missing dates), the 1 yen had the dragon with Japanese date and some English describing the grains, fineness and value on one side, and the denomination, wreath and chrysanthemum on the other. I agree that they are some of the most beautiful silver coins ever minted.
