Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;satootoko, post: 131860, member: 669&quot;]Well, it&#039;s pre-Meiji Japanese, and&nbsp; <u>says</u> that it&#039;s silver, with a value of 10 ryo; but the character at the far left of your fourth picture just isn&#039;t clear enough to see all the pen strokes, and make out exactly what it is.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The legend in your first picture, and the right side of your fourth picture is the one that gives the material and value.&nbsp; As part of the Meiji Reformation, the old currency system of Oban, Ryo, Shu, Bu, Mon, etc., was scrapped and the new decimal values of Yen, Sen and Rin were adopted.&nbsp; The original definition of the yen was the amount of gold or silver previously valued at 1 Ryo, so this coin would have converted to the new currency as ¥10, which was roughly the equivalent of US$10 in 1867 and for quite a few years thereafter.</p><p><br /></p><p>The legend on the left side of your fourth picture is basically the date, but my Beautiful Bride is having difficulty reading it.&nbsp; Her first take was &quot;Kaitoku nen seizoo&quot;, which would mean &quot;Made in the Kaitoku era&quot;.&nbsp; The problem is, there was no such era, and the possible alternative &quot;Kantoku&quot; (1044-46) won&#039;t work because Japanese nengo (era names) containing the syllable &quot;kan&quot; are written with a completely different character.</p><p><br /></p><p>About all that can be said for certain is that <i>if genuine</i>, it <ul> <li>Is in fact silver</li> <li>Was issued significantly prior to the start of the Tokugawa period at the dawn of the 17th Century, and</li> <li>It&#039;s in remarkable condition for its age.</li> </ul><p></p><p>Value?&nbsp; <img src="http://boards.collectors-society.com/images//graemlins/confused-smiley-013.gif" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>If you can post a higher resolution picture of the top half of the segment on the left of photo #4, showing all the fine lines, perhaps the BB will be able to figure out the correct era name, which would pinpoint it to a relatively short span of years.</p><p><br /></p><p>BTW the only reason I raise a question of genuineness is the apparently anamolous date, and the total absence of anything remotely similar in either the JNDA Catalog section on pre-Meiji money, or any of my other references, including the copiously illustrated 1904 <i>Coins of Japan</i> by Munro, of which I was recently able to add a copy of the 1962 reprint to my library.<img src="http://forums.collectors.com/i/expressions/dancing%20smiley.gif" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in