Eye Candy Corner: Post Your Toned Coins!

That is a nicely toned Yen. I know during this time period Japan was becoming more modern so to say and more accepting of western culture especially with clothing attire. However, this coin was minted in Osaka. Why does it state in English on the obverse "One Yen"? Why isn't it all in Japanese?

So to answer DrBurnzy's question.
Here is an 1870 1 yen - this is only AU50 but is a type 2 which is quite rare. I posted a toned type 1 which is gorgeous earlier on this thread but I include it again (hope people don't mind)





Anyway, in 1870 they did indeed use the Chinese characters only but interestingly enough they were ALL minted at the San Francisco mint because the Osaka mint was NOT in existence till 1871. In fact the 1870 coins were only issued in 1871 but they have the minting date from the SF mint minting.
So technically the 1870 1 yen is a US coin ... not really but cool anyway:)

Now they minted gold 1 yen in 1871 and basically didn't do anything till 1874 when they decided to mint BOTH gold and silver 1yen mostly to compete with the Trade dollars because China would ONLY accept silver at the time. So they used english writing with the number of grains and the fineness in it.
Ironically just the NEXT year they minted their own Trade dollars for 3 years! they were EXACTLY the same as the US Trade dollars because the yen were slightly lower weight (due to intially trying to have a weight between the US 1 dollar weights and the US Trade dollars.

Hope all that helps.

By the way, I love that 39 50 cents with beautiful violet toning on the british flag otto:)

OK. So, the Japanese Yen used Chinese characters to appease the Chinese and English writing measurements/weights to also appease the Chinese, but maybe also to thank the US for helping them out in 1870 kept the ONE YEN as thanks to the USA.

@otto I like the toning on the reverse.

Right... but one quick correction. The Chinese characters were always used in Japan - that was their script since it changed from something that looked a LOT like Hebrew more than 1000 years ago.
But yes, it was very convenient that they wrote the 1 yen in english (the British empire was the world's biggest economy), and on the reverse they put 1 yen in Chinese script.
The meiji Japanese were in awe of the west especially the british empire and the US and were trying also to copy them as much as possible. Japan having been shut for such a long time didn't realize how much tech had improved and so they went full speed into modernizing hence opening the Osaka and then the Tokyo mint etc.
I do think they very much appreciated the SF mint stuff - and they did given the US ambassidor a full set of their 1880 proof coinage. That particular set is lost to the mists of time - but to this day when proof coins do appear for meiji (almost all of them are 1880 but there have appeared other years) they are EXTREMELY well bid - like 5k plus for even the LOWLY 1/2 sen

https://coins.ha.com/itm/japan/japa...3051-34330.s

I have been FOREVER looking for a single 1880 proof of any of it (1/2 sen through to 1 yen) but have never found any in the wild so had to buy the couple that I have at full price from Heritage ... :(
S
And just so you know, the Japanese proofs are INCREDIBLY rare compared to the US proofs.

Nice bit of History Mano! thanks!

Lovely stuff Otto and Manos

Nice toning, Otto!