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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;hontonai, post: 738721, member: 4703&quot;]You have some very useful information there, but there is one small error and one important omission in your explanation of Japanese dates.</p><p><br /></p><p>The special character used for the first year of a reign is 元 (gan - First), not &quot;gannen&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>The character 年 (nen - year) is the final character of <i>every</i> date, not just First Year.</p><p><br /></p><p>Example - both 2009CE (Heisei 21 - 平成二十一年 = Heisei nijuu ichi nen) and 1989CE (Heisei First = 平成元年 - Heisei gan nen) have the same final character.</p><p><br /></p><p>On pre-1948 coinage the date is read in the traditional right to left order.&nbsp; After that it is read in western-style left to right order.&nbsp; Because of that change, any explanation of Japanese coinage dating should point out that 年 is always the final character of a date and indicative of which direction to read on a given coin.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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