Japan obsolete coin types from the Meiji, Taisho and Showa Eras

I took some pictures from my large unsorted stack of obsolete Japanese coins.
Most of the non-silver ones were cherry-picked from 10 and 25 cent junk bins over the years. First up: Reeded-edge 10 yen coins.

From L: Showa year 26, 28, 27, 29, 30 (1951-1955)
I believe they minted these from Showa 26-33, except for year 31. The last two years of the series are much lower mintages, and I've never found one loose. After 1955 they switched to a smooth edge, and the type is still in use. There was also an earlier 10 yen coin from the Meiji Era made of gold, but I don't own one.

 

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Part 2: 50 yen
L: Showa 31 (1956) R: Showa 51 (1976)

The 50 yen was never made of gold or silver. Before WW2 it would have been too large an amount for a gold coin, and after the wartime inflation it was a subsidiary coin made of nickel even when the 100 yen was silver. The left type was made from 1955-1958, and the right type with the hole was made from 1967-present. There is an intermediate type from year 34-41 (1959-1966) which I don't have loose. These are almost always worth picking up from a junk bin, even if they are modern, as the face value is about $0.46.

 

Part 3: 100 yen
L: Showa 33 (1958) M: Showa 43 (1968) R: Showa 39 (1964)
The 100 yen coin was introduced in Showa 32 (1957) The three silver types are shown above. The 1964 Olympics version was only made for one year, but was a circulating coin. Modern 100 yen coins are of a different type, with a cluster of cherry blossoms on the face, which started in Showa 42 (1967). There were also many circulating commemoratives.

Though made of silver, these were only 0.600 fine, and only had about 25% more silver content than a US dime. At a then-typical exchange rate of 360 yen to the dollar, that would mean the 100 yen only had about half its face value in silver content. Thus, these coins were generally hard to find sold as bulk silver, as their face value would have been higher than their metal value for many years. At today's silver prices and exchange rates they would have about $1.41 in silver value and $0.93 in face value.

 

Part 4: 500 yen
Image: Hesei 12 (2000), first year of current type
The 500 yen were only introduced fairly recently, in Showa 57 (1982). It was meant to replace the 500 yen note, which was phased out by 1994. The original version was a silvery copper-nickel alloy. In 2000 (Heisei 12) a nickel-brass version was made, with a yellower color. This coin is from the first year of the new type, and has several anti-counterfeiting measures. The zeros on the reverse are now filled with fine lines which can show a vertical bar from one angle and "500円" printed sideways from a different angle. It also has microprinting scattered about the face, and the reeding on the edges is at a slight diagonal. Rumor is that North Korea was a big producer of fake 500 yen coins, but I have no direct knowledge. Above: Same coin, illuminated at a steep angle to show the hidden writing "500円" going from top to bottom in the lines of each zero.

500 don't have much historical interest yet, being of recent issue. I believe this type is scheduled to be replaced next year with a new, bimetallic design. This one I found in a 25 cent bin, which made me inordinately happy as it's worth almost five dollars face. Not much to do but spent it, though.

Japan has also issued a ridiculous number of commemorative 500 yen coins. Unlike the 1964 Olympic commemorative 100 yen, I don't believe they were really meant for circulation. I don't know how much of a premium they sold for at the time.

 

Part 5: 5 yen
L: Showa 23 (1948) R: Showa 25 (1950)

Japan has two obsolete types of 5 yen coins, not counting the earlier gold coin from the Meiji Era. The one without the center hole was only issued from Showa 23-24 (1948-1949), and has the Diet building on the reverse. Not sure what a pigeon is doing on the obverse. In spite of the two year mintage, these coins are plentiful and don't carry much of a premium over face in circulated condition. The righthand coin uses a brush-style script for the "五円" on the reverse, as opposed to the block-style characters on the modern version. It also uses the old-fashioned version of the character for country: 國 instead of 国.They were made from Showa 24-33 (1949-1953). They are also readily available for most years. Showa 32 (1957) is the scarcest date, and Showa 27, 28 and 33 have smaller mintages than the first three years of production and carry a slight premium. There was no Showa 29 or 30 five yen coin minted.

 

Looking at my late father-in-law's records he picked up this 1000 yen Olympic commemorative at a coin shop in Almeria City which is about 20 mins from where i live in Spain, he paid 2 euros for it, about 2.20$.
It is of .25 silver and weighs 20g and is 35mm diameter.
Olympics on the obverse and mount fuji with cherry blossoms reverse.
Uncirculated they retail for about 24$ or have a bullion value at todays prices of 9$

 

Part 6: 1 yen
L: Meiji year 45 (1912) R: Showa year 24 (1949)

The Meiji Era one yen coin was a large, silver dollar-sized coin introduced in the monetary reforms after the end of the Tokugawa Period. It was divided into 100 sen, and one sen made 10 rin. Many fakes of the silver yen exist. They carry a significant premium over silver these days. In the 90s, I could occasionally find them for $20 and under, usually chop-marked. I can't vouch for authenticity, but the weight and diameter look correct.

I believe the 1 yen silver was made for a single year in the Taisho Era (Year 3 = 1914) and then discontinued until after WW2. Japan experienced significant inflation in the early 1900s, and then runaway inflation plus debasement during the war. By 1948, 1 yen was a small brass base-metal coin worth about 1/360 of a dollar. The brass type shown right was minted from Showa 23-25 (1948-1950) and then replaced with the modern aluminum type still in use.

The new aluminum 1 yen coins are very light and flimsy. Japanese prices are often given as round numbers, so that you wouldn't get a lot of small change when making purchases. (Japan has much more of a cash culture than in the US. Even one's monthly salary was often paid out in cash.) Prices on some retail goods will have an odd 税抜き (zeinuki = pretax) price so that after the consumption tax the 税込み (zeikomi = tax included) price will come out even. One yen coins are considered an annoyance and held in the same lack of esteem as US pennies. Such a small-value coin is still minted for historical reasons, and because it is the base unit of the monetary system, but no one wants them much.

One yen coins are said to float on water. Not strictly true: aluminum has a density of 2.7 (2.7 times denser than water), so they do sink. But if you can lay one flat the surface tension is such that it is possible to get them to float. I just tried it out, and it does work:

L: 1 yen, floating with surface tension. R: Sinks if you disturb it

 

Fantastic fotography

 

Bonus ridiculousness: Does a 1 yen coin float?
Aluminum: Yes! if you set it just right and don't disturb it.
Brass: No! It's too dense to form a meniscus to hold it and sinks like a rock.

Silver: No! This is just dumb...

 

Yes, the Rin was worth 1/1000th of a Yen and only 2 Rin coins were made after the Meiji era. The last one was minted in 大正八年 or Taisho 8 or 1919.

Here's one from 明治七年 or Meiji 7 or 1874. These were tiny at only 15.75 mm.

Yes, there was a single Taisho Yen made in 大正三年 or Taisho 3 or 1914.

 

Part 7: 50 sen
From L: Meiji 40 (1907), Taisho 12 (1923), Showa 21 (1946), Showa 23 (1948)

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. They show the inflation of the times. The Meiji one I have was 10.1 g of 0.800 silver. Earlier Meiji versions were 12.5 or 13.5 g of 0.800 fineness. The Taisho 12 coin is smaller at 4.96 g and also reduced to 0.720 fineness. These were minted until year 13 (1938) when wartime inflation made producing silver coinage untenable. The smaller silver denominations were discontinued ever earlier: 20 sen in 1911, 10 sen in 1917, and 5 sen in 1892. 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).

After the war, two types of brass 50 sen were minted: The first type (third from L in picture) was made Showa 21 (1946), and the final type was made Showa 22-23 (1947-1948). After that the 50 sen was too small in value to produce. 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. The coin on the far right of the photo is from Showa 23 (1948), the final year of issue for the denomination. From then on, the yen was so small a unit of money as to be effectively "indivisible," with all the subsidiary denominations passed on into history.

 

Part 8: 20 sen
Meiji year 9 (1876)

The 20 sen wasn't a particularly long-lived type. Usually Japanese coins go from a base unit to coins or bills of 5 and 10 times that for each power of ten. For example, the modern Japanese coins in circulation are 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, and 500 yen. There are a few obsolete exceptions to the rule, like the 20 sen and the 2 sen, but these go back to the Meiji Era and didn't last long.

There were two major types of 20 sen. This one was made from Meji years 3-38 (1870-1905) and a lighter one with radiant sun pattern from Meiji 39-44 (1906-1911). All of them tend to sell for significantly over silver value even in circulated condition. So if you see one for close to silver it's probably worth picking up!

 

Part 9: 10 sen
From Top L: Meiji 32 (1899), Taisho 12 (1923), Showa 2 (1927), Showa 11 (1936), Showa 18 (1943), Showa 19 (1944), Showa 21 (1946)
I like the 10 sen series, because Japan kept making them all through the war, with several design and composition changes in response to inflation and shortages. There are several types.

In the Meiji Era, they were a small silver coin. There was a minor weight increase in Meiji 6 (1873), which was matched by a weight increase in the other silver coinage: 5 sen (Meiji 6), 20 sen (Meiji 6), 50 sen (Meiji 6) and 1 yen (Meiji 7, but no 1 yen silver coins were minted in Meiji 4-6 = 1871-1873).

I haven't been able to find a detailed reference to why this occurred, but I have an educated guess. The Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871, with Prussia demanding a huge reparations payment from France in gold as a result. The shock of this knocked France off of a bimetallic standard to a gold standard, and several major countries followed suit, such as the US with the Coinage Act of 1873. This put downward pressure on the price of silver relative to gold as many economies demonetized silver at the same time. Japan was still on a silver standard (as was China) at the time, and making coinage out of both gold and silver. The 1 yen was made of gold from Meiji 4-13 (1871-1880), with some missing years, and concurrently of silver from Meiji 3 to Taisho 3 (1870 - 1914). By increasing the weight of the silver coinage, Japan was able to keep the value ratio of the gold and silver coinage in line with the world prices of silver and gold after a downward shock in the demand for silver in 1871. Japan would adopt the gold standard later, in 1897.

Anyway, inflation eventually kicked in, and the the 10 sen was reduced in weight and given a new design in Meiji 40 (1907), for which I don't have an example. By Taisho 9 (1920), a base metal 10 sen was introduced, of copper nickel. Two examples of this type are shown in the second and third from left in the top row, one each from the Taisho and Showa Eras. A new design made of nickel (far left, top row), was minted from Showa 8-12 (1933-1937). I'm missing an example of the aluminum-bronze type from Showa 13-15 (1938-1940).

The coin was debased almost yearly at this point in the war. An aluminum 10 sen was made from Showa 15-18 (1940-1943), shown bottom left. A tin-zinc (bottom center) was made in Showa 19 (1944) only. Finally a baked clay 10 sen was planned for 1945, but the war ended before it entered circulation, I believe. They do exist, but I'm still looking for an example, and they are scarce and pricey.

After the war, a 10 sen type was made for one year in Showa 21 (1946), before the denomination was abandoned as too small of value to be of use, even in the war-wrecked Japanese economy. There's an example of this type on the bottom right, also made of aluminum. They no longer say "大日本" (The Empire of Japan), but have the issuing authority given as "日本政府" (The Government of Japan), to reflect the new status quo of military occupation.

 

OK, I'm not sure if anyone except me is interested in bimetallism and Japanese monetary history, but I believe my explanation yesterday for why Japan increased the weight of its subsidiary yen coins was incorrect. What I believe now:

1) The yen was a brand new currency in 1870, and there was a lot of uncertainty as to how to manage gold/silver and paper money simultaneously.

2) The worldwide price of gold was on a sharp upswing in the 1870s compared to silver. Japan had tremendous trouble keeping gold 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 yen coins in circulation while it was on a silver standard until 1897. Gold coins were either discontinued or low mintage for most years from 1874-1897. The rising price of gold would have encouraged people to hoard, export or melt any gold coinage.

3) The silver yen coin was full-bodied, at about 24.26 grams of silver per yen. All of the smaller silver coinage was not. They were 20 g/yen before the weight increase (1870-71) and about 21.6 g/yen afterward (1873-1906 or 1907). The smaller coins were about 20% underweight compared to the full yen coins, and would not have been accepted in foreign trade. (See table I threw together


4) There was probably considerable domestic resistance to accepting the underweight subsidiary silver coinage, leading to shortages of small change. The slight weight increase may have been meant to address this and improve public acceptance of the silver small coins.

5) Japan switched to a gold standard in 1897 and kept it until the Great Depression and inflationary pressures from Japan's imperial ambitions made it untenable. By the time Japan adopted the gold standard, the price of gold had approximately doubled compared to what it was in terms of silver in 1870 (source). The gold coins were halved in weight to keep the silver coinage about the same size on the new gold standard. The 1870 implied gold/silver price ratio was 16.1:1. By 1897 with the lighter gold coins it was 32.3:1 (compared to the silver 1 yen metal content).


6) The metal content of the subsidiary silver coins was reduced by about 20% in 1906-1907. By this point, Japan was on a gold standard and the silver money functioned as a "token" currency. The weight change may have been an attempt to gain more seignorage revenue from minting silver coins, or a response to the partial recovery of the price of silver compared to gold in the 1900-1906 period.

I'll resume posting pictures of coins instead of economic theorizing shortly!

 

Part 10: 5 sen
From Top L: Meiji 6 (1873), Meiji 30 (1897), Meiji 31 (1897), Taisho 12 (1937), Showa 9 (1934), Showa 14 (1940), Showa 17 (1942)
The 5 sen is another type series with a lot of nice varieties and changes in material. In early Meiji (year 3-4 = 1870-1871) it was a 0.800 silver coin at 1.25 g. The weight was raised to 1.34 g from Meiji 6-10 (1873-1880), of the type shown top left. A copper-nickel version (second from top L) was made from Meiji 22-30. The design was changed to a radiant sun pattern (top 3rd from L) for Meiji 30-38 (1897-1905) Many of these early types have the denomination both in Japanese characters and in Western lettering. As nationalism became more pronounced, the images on the coins become more explicitly martial, and the Western legends disappear.

Next is a pattern with a flower outline around a center hole from Taisho 6 to Showa 7 (1917-1932). A nickel holed coin (bottom L) from Showa 8-12 (1933-1937) has a rather warlike eagle on the reverse. (I'm skipping pattern types and years where only a tiny number of coins of the type were issued.) The composition was changed to aluminum-bronze and a new type (center bottom) for Showa 13-15 (1938-1940). Next an aluminum 5 sen was made from Showa 15-18 (1940-1943).


Above from L: Showa 15-19 (1940-1944)

The first four aluminum ones are of the same type, but the weight was successively reduced. Year 15 is 1.2g, 16 is 1.2 or 1.0 g (both exist, I can't tell which), 17 is 1.0 g, and 18 is 0.8 g. If you look at the edge photo you can see they get slightly thinner from left to right. A tin-zinc 5 sen was made in Showa 19 (1944), shown far right above. There are two more types from 1945-1946 which I don't have: A baked clay coin was produced but didn't enter circulation, and a tin-zinc coin issued by the "Japanese government" was made in Showa 20-21 (1945-1946). After that year, the denomination was discontinued.

 

Part 11: 2 sen
Meiji year 15 (1882), "V-shaped" scales variety
The 2 sen is probably my favorite Meiji Era coin. It's a nice big copper, substantially bigger than a modern 500 yen, with about half an ounce of metal. There are two similar varieties. The earlier one has horizontal lines dividing the "square-shaped" scales, and was made from Meiji 6-10 (1873-1877). This one has pairs of V-shapes dividing the scales, and is of the type from Meiji 10-17 (1877-1884). The entire mintage of the denomination only lasted from 1873-1884, though a Meiji 25th year of reign issue was planned but never released to circulation. All dates are probably worth at least a couple dollars even in worn condition, so if I ever see one in a junk bin, I always pick it up.

The yen as a unit of currency was only introduced in 1871, so the currency itself was fairly new when these coins were minted. The inscription on top reads (right-to-left, as was traditional for Japanese in older horizontal writing): "五十枚　換一圓" (50 pieces exchanges for 1 yen). The dragon is a symbol for the Emperor, borrowed from Chinese tradition. The chrysanthemum and paulownia wreath on the reverse are from the Imperial coat of arms.

 

Part 11: 1 sen
From top L: Meiji 15, "V" scales (1882), Meiji 9, Square scales (1876), Taisho 11 (1922), Showa 6 (1931), Showa 15 (1940), Showa 16 (1941), Showa 20 (1945)



The 1 sen is another series which starkly shows the trend of inflation, debasement and wartime shortages. It started in the Meiji era as a sizable copper coin, about a quarter ounce. The older type (top center) has rectangular scales, and was made from Meiji 6-10 (1873-1877). A second version was made from Meiji 13-21 (1880-1888), shown top left. Both indicate their value with an inscription on the top: "百枚　換一圓" (100 pieces exchanges for 1 yen). I'm missing the large bronze radiant sun version of late Meiji and early Taisho.

The next two have a nice paulownia flower seal on one side and "一錢" (One Sen) on the other. I'm treating the side with the date in all cases as the obverse for consistency. Not all sources agree on head or tails designation for Japanese coins, which often have the denomination on both sides and no portrait on either. Sen is an obsolete character, by the way. In modern Japanese it is "銭". In modern Chinese it is the generic term for money (qian2) and has a different simplification: 钱. Both Chinese and Japanese underwent character simplification after World War II, but the Chinese was more drastic and affected a greater fraction of characters.

By 1938, the coin was changed to aluminum, with a larger pattern version (not shown) and then a smaller 18 mm circulation version (bottom, 2nd from L). Japan was already at war by 1938. There was no sharp dividing line between an expansionistic "peace" and overt war for Japan in China. Japan had invaded Manchuria in 1931, and was openly operating in the rest of China by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937.

A smaller aluminum coin with Mount Fuji on the reverse (bottom 3rd from L) was made from Showa 16-18 (1941-1943). I think these are quite pretty for a debased wartime issue, but being made of aluminum they don't tend to hold up well. The tin-zinc 1 sen shown bottom R was minted Showa 19-20 (1944-1945). A baked clay version was issued a few days before the end of the war. Supposedly, these are the easiest to find of the baked clay 1, 5 and 10 sen series, but I've still never seen one in person.

 

Here are a couple of the earlier commemoratives. I bought the set at an LCS tucked away in a back alley in Shinjuku, after searching via Google Maps and asking directions. At 1500 yen I thought it was an absolute steal.





And here’s another more recent one, from the 47 Prefectures coin program. Shizuoka Prefecture featuring Mt. Fuji:



The morning after I bought that coin, I went for a run in Shizuoka Prefecture and took my own picture of Mt. Fuji:

 

Very nice and informative thread! My first serious numismatic undertaking was a type set of non-gold, no-rarities Japanese coins - the end result was probably a bit lower grade than I would have put together today, but it is still one of my favorite collections.

If I may contribute some of the missing coins...

From 1870-71 the newly modernized Japanese mint minted a small number of silver and gold coins that foreshadowed the main "dragon" types of Meiji, but with an imperial crest reverse and the denomination on the front - these coins are the only Meiji to have no Latin numerals or letters whatsoever.

5 sen, dragon type - generally considered to be a semi-key type, and commands healthy premiums for well-struck examples. These come in shallow and deep scale varieties - mine is shallow


Early in 1871 the mint decided that the 5 sen were too difficult to strike properly, so the dragon was dropped and replaced with the denomination


10 sen shallow scales


Deep scales


20 sen
Shallow scales


Deep scales


50 sen
The initial design was about a mm larger, and had a larger dragon

In 1871 the diameter was reduced and the dragon was re-designed


I actually won a (cheap!) 1870 yen that is currently stuck in COVID-19 limbo - hoping to have it by the end of the summer! 1870 yen are tough because not only are they quite rare and in high demand, but they are the target of numerous high-profile counterfeiting operations that strike the coins in period-correct silver with expertly made dies.

Almost out of room in this post, so I will include a favorite - a 1945 clay sen


Also the Taisho 5 rin that you alluded to- the last coin below 1 sen ever struck

 

Thanks to the two above posters for the beautiful examples!
Almost to the end of my photos... Part 12: Fractional sen coins

From top L: 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, "V" scales (1884), 5 Rin Taisho 8 (1919)


Now for some tiny denominations! 10 rin divide one sen, so a half sen and 5 rin are equivalent denominations. When the yen was introduced, it was worth 24.26 g of silver or 1.5 g of gold. 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. (The US switched from a bimetallic to a gold standard in 1873, and its silver coinage was no longer necessarily full-bodied).

So, 1 rin would have been worth about 1/10 of a US cent when it was first minted in Meiji 6 (1873). 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. The 1 rin lasted until Meiji 17 (1884), after which 5 rin was the smallest denomination. These were minted as "1/2 SEN" from Meiji 6-10 = 1873-1877 (square scales) and Meiji 10-21 = 1877-1888 ("V" scales). Both varieties are shown in the bottom row of the photos above. The 5 rin (bottom right) was also issued for a few years under the Taisho Emperor: years 5-8 (1916-9).

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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

As for the coin on the upper right, its a sort of imposter. The characters on the reverse are then same as 1/2 sen: "半錢", but it's a Korean 1/2 chon. The designs are strikingly similar. 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. The resemblance was not a coincidence. Korea had switched from Russian domination to Japanese domination after the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. The Korean type resembled the Japanese 1/2 sen which had ended production 18 years earlier.