Old Japan / Chinese Coin ? What Is It?

Looks like Japanese 1 sen coin minted during WWII. Probably Showa 19 or 20. You need to take a better picture, which you might want to play around with your camera setting. Usually there should be a macro function, which is denoted as a flower on your digital camera.

By the way, is your coin something like this on the right? http://page6.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/j...on/f50169057

I seem to have got side-tracked and missed replying to this thread. If you're still wondering about the specifics of these coins, rajuncajun, here they are...

Japan 1 sen, WWII period, listed as number KM/Y 62 in the Krause catalogue of world coins. These coins were struck in the 19th and 20th years of Emperor Hirohito (That's how the Japanese date their coins, by year of the reigning emperor), which are 1944 and 1945 AD. I can't make out the date on those pics, but you might be able to work that out yourself. Here's how:

The date will be the string of five characters at the bottom of the left picture. In this string, the left-most character means "year", the next two characters are the numbers, and the two on the right are the emperor's reign name, "Showa". If the number-characters look like an equals sign = and a plus-sign + then the year is 20 (1945). If they look like a plus sign and a "plus sign with two legs", then the year is 19 (1944).

The coins are black because they're made of a mixture of tin and zinc - the only metals left in wartime Japan to make small change out of. In the dying days of the war, even these metals were in short supply and they started making small change out of ceramic (clay).

Catalogue value for your coins isn't too high - less than a dollar, most likely. Year 20 coins are slightly scarcer than Year 19 ones.