During the Japanese invasion through Asia, they have issued many puppet coins. Most are common but there are some real obscure ones that rarely appear in the market. Hunting them down is a challenge!
Some examples are:
China: Provisional Government, Manchukuo, East Hebei, Hua Hsing, Meng Chiang (Inner Mongolia)
Netherlands East Indies - better known as Indonesia today
Provisional Government
Part of three coin set. This is supposedly struck in China however the planchets seem to be very similar to the ones used in Japan. There are supposedly very rare patterns struck in silver (!)
1943 5 fen can be a very illusive coin
Hua Hsing
The only coin that is affordable is the 10 fen. This is actually part of a 4 coin set (1, 5, 10 and 20 fen). The next 'common' coin of the series is 1 fen.
Struck in copper featuring a bundle of rice.
Meng Chiang
The only coin that is easily available is the 1938 5 jiao struck in copper-nickel. There are 4 other coins struck. The aluminum (1 fen, 5 fen and 1 jiao) are labelled as patterns but they were originally planned to be used for circulation. It is assumed that these coins were struck in Japan and were sunk on its way.
1 jiao coin struck in aluminum. Pretty neat phoenix.
This one did stump me. This coin is struck in zinc instead of copper-nickel. Perhaps as part of the cost saving measure during WWII, there may have been plans to issue this particular coin in zinc.
Netherlands Dutch Indies (Indonesia)
There are three types of coins planned to be issued. (1 sen, 5 sen, 10 sen) All were struck in Osaka Mint in 1943 and 1944. However as the war intensified, most would have been either lost during transportation or melted down for war efforts.
The 10 sen coin is perhaps the easiest to find (2 year type)
Struck in tin-zinc alloy, this features a stick figure between two sakura.
Trying to find the other coins to complete each set may be a life mission.
Hope you find them interesting.
Posted 12/03/2024 8:33 pm
