1) Are these Chinese? Edit: they're Japanese. Thanks @gxseries! (I'm just a dumb uni-lingual American...! ;-)) 2) If not, from where are they? 3) Do I have the alignment correct? If not, how should they be? 4) Can you tell me anything else about them? I know they're not rare or anything; just cool. Thanks.
They are all Japanese. Note that the 500 yen coin is literally a 4-5 dollar coin (depending on exchange rate). It's a high face value coin.
Thanks! It was pretty early this morning when I took the pictures, but I *think* I flipped them all as if they had "coin alignment" (e.g., U.S. coins) as opposed to "medal alignment". 5) Is that correct? (The "10" reverse is upside-down; I may have goofed that picture up) 6) Are they all measured in "yen"? 7) What is the first coin, the one without any numbers that I recognize? 8) Any websites that will help me understand what the coins say on them?
The first coin is a 5 yen coin. The obverse / reverse is the other way around. Alignment is medal alignment, not coin alignment like US coins. Numista might be helpful: http://en.numista.com/catalogue/japon-1.html Years as follow: 5 yen - Heisei 7, 1995 10 yen - Heisei 4, 1992 50 yen - Heisei 1, 1989 100 yen - Showa 50, 1975 500 yen - Heisei 13, 2001
I found several 100 yen and one 500 yen coins in a dealer's junk box (5 for $1) and at first thought...Oh Boy...then realized I could only spend them in Japan. : - (
This is a good Japanese (coin) dating page: http://www.lioncoins.com/nippon.htm If you ever google it, do NOT forget to add the word coin. Better yet, include 'lioncoins' in the search. 'Japanese dating' gets a bit different result.
