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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The Eidolon, post: 4393625, member: 102103&quot;]Thanks to the two above posters for the beautiful examples!</p><p>Almost to the end of my photos...&nbsp; Part 12:&nbsp; Fractional sen coins</p><p><br /></p><p>From top L:&nbsp; 1 Rin Meiji 16 (1883), 1/2 Chon Guangmu 10 (Korea under Japanese domination, 1906), 1/2 Sen Meiji 10, Square Scales (1877), 1/2 Sen Meiji 17, &quot;V&quot; scales (1884), 5 Rin Taisho 8 (1919)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1105275[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1105276[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Now for some tiny denominations!&nbsp; 10 rin divide one sen, so a half sen and 5 rin are equivalent denominations.&nbsp; When the yen was introduced, it was worth 24.26 g of silver or 1.5 g of gold.&nbsp; At a comparable time, the US $20 gold had 33.436 g of 90% gold for 33.092 g of gold content, or 1.5046 g of gold per dollar, which was almost exactly the same value in gold as the 1 yen.&nbsp; (The US switched from a bimetallic to a gold standard in 1873, and its silver coinage was no longer necessarily full-bodied).</p><p><br /></p><p>So, 1 rin would have been worth about 1/10 of a US cent when it was first minted in Meiji 6 (1873).&nbsp; The half cent was discontinued in 1857, so a coin worth a fifth of that in 1873 would have been much smaller than the tiniest denominations then still in use in most other countries.&nbsp; The 1 rin lasted until Meiji 17 (1884), after which 5 rin was the smallest denomination.&nbsp; These were minted as &quot;1/2 SEN&quot; from Meiji 6-10 = 1873-1877 (square scales) and Meiji 10-21 = 1877-1888 (&quot;V&quot; scales).&nbsp; Both varieties are shown in the bottom row of the photos above.&nbsp; The 5 rin (bottom right) was also issued for a few years under the Taisho Emperor:&nbsp; years 5-8 (1916-9).&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I suspect this was related to the hard money shortages and rise in silver price caused by the Great War, which increased the demand for non-precious metal currency when silver money was scarce.&nbsp; The UK had a similar problem after the War, and had to reduce the silver content of its coins from sterling (0.925) to 0.500 fineness in 1920 to keep them for being melted down or exported as the price of silver rose.&nbsp; Even a country on a gold standard (like the UK since the Napoleonic Era or Japan after 1897), risks having its token (not full-bodied) silver coinage melted down if the price of silver rises too steeply.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>By the way, the reason Japan was able to switch to a gold standard was because the huge indemnity Japan demanded from China after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 provided enough of a buffer of hard currency for Japan to switch over to gold.&nbsp; At the time Japan switched to the gold standard, the yen had fallen to half its value in the 1870s compared to the currencies of countries on the gold standard, such as the US, UK, Germany and France.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for the coin on the upper right, its a sort of imposter.&nbsp; The characters on the reverse are then same as 1/2 sen:&nbsp; &quot;半錢&quot;, but it&#039;s a Korean 1/2 chon.&nbsp; The designs are strikingly similar.&nbsp; The Korean coin has an eagle rather than a dragon to represent the Emperor, and the reverse has a plum flower rather than a chrysanthemum at the top.&nbsp; The resemblance was not a coincidence.&nbsp; Korea had switched from Russian domination to Japanese domination after the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.&nbsp; The Korean type resembled the Japanese 1/2 sen which had ended production 18 years earlier.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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