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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The Eidolon, post: 4369307, member: 102103&quot;]Part 7:&nbsp; 50 sen</p><p>From L:&nbsp; Meiji 40 (1907), Taisho 12 (1923), Showa 21 (1946), Showa 23 (1948)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1103673[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1103674[/ATTACH] </p><p>After the last silver one yen coins were issued in Taisho 3 (1914), I believe the 50 sen would have been the largest silver Japanese coin in circulation.&nbsp; They show the inflation of the times.&nbsp; The Meiji one I have was 10.1 g of 0.800 silver.&nbsp; Earlier Meiji&nbsp; versions were 12.5 or 13.5 g of 0.800 fineness.&nbsp; The Taisho 12 coin is smaller at 4.96 g and also reduced to 0.720 fineness.&nbsp; These were minted until year 13 (1938) when wartime inflation made producing silver coinage untenable.&nbsp; The smaller silver denominations were discontinued ever earlier:&nbsp; 20 sen in 1911, 10 sen in 1917, and 5 sen in 1892.&nbsp; Japan is one of the few nations to resume silver coinage production after a bout of high inflation, with the silver 100 yen of Showa 32-41 (1957-1966).</p><p><br /></p><p>After the war, two types of brass 50 sen were minted:&nbsp; The first type (third from L in picture) was made Showa 21 (1946), and the final type was made Showa 22-23 (1947-1948).&nbsp; After that the 50 sen was too small in value to produce.&nbsp; With 1950 exchange rates of 361 yen to the US dollar, half of a yen would have been worth only 0.14 US cents at the time.&nbsp; The coin on the far right of the photo is from Showa 23 (1948), the final year of issue for the denomination.&nbsp; From then on, the yen was so small a unit of money as to be effectively &quot;indivisible,&quot; with all the subsidiary denominations passed on into history.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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