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 Replies: 9 / Views: 1,713 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
This coin has been on my want list for a very long time, and it has taken quite a while to find one in good condition for less than $100. It is literally the largest coin that will fit in the 2x2 album pages for my Japanese set, since it fills the 2x2 flip completely. In hand, the closest thing I can compare this coin to is a cartwheel twopence. It's massive! Japan, Ryukyu Kingdom (Okinawa) 1/2 shu (125 mon) Ca. 1863-1870 43.5mm, 33.2g Obverse: Ryu-Kyu-Tsu-Ho (in seal script)  Reverse: Han (1/2) Shu (in seal script)  The Ryukyu islands were a curious anomaly in pre-modern Japan. Inhabited since ancient times, the Japanese empire "discovered" them in the 7th century AD, and allowed them to remain a mostly autonomous tributary kingdom, mostly to fill the need for a "barbarian" people for the Emperor (and later Shogun) to look down on. Cultural and ethnic bonds with Japan strengthened when, in 1609 Satsuma lord Shimazu Tadatsune successfully invaded and conquered the islands, but maintained their status as an independent kingdom. The kingdom was exempt from Japan's isolationist policy, but mainly only conducted trade with China, to which it was also a tributary kingdom until 1874. Japan annexed the islands in 1879, but on paper Qing China maintained claim to the islands until 1895. The US government seized administrative control of the islands after WWII, returning them to Japanese control in 1972. This coin was introduced in 1863, amidst a wave of official, quasi-official, and private coins that swept the islands as the Ryo based monetary system collapsed in the 1850s and 60s. Carrying a face value of 1/2 shu (125 mon, or 1/32 Ryo) it was apparently decreed to circulate at a value of 248 mon, but highly unstable conditions led to its real value crashing to only about 66 mon. Due to their unpopularity due to size and deep casting, these coins are usually found in VF or XF, although many were scrapped or damaged during the turbulent 1870s. These are some of the rarest and most expensive Japanese bronze coins that are reasonably obtainable. |
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Valued Member
Uruguay
217 Posts |
Nice coin Finn235 ! I like big asian coins.
Has it inscriptions on the edge?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1915 Posts |
You sure take a nice picture.
By chance is that a Dino-Lite with Adobe and the color temp was bumped up one click?
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6130 Posts |
These coins have smooth edges, except for the file marks to remove the casting seam.
The much more common oval 100 mon (Tempo Tsuuho) I believe are the only bronze coins with edge marks, bearing a very small validation punch (I think a sakura) to certify them for circulation. I do not know if the Ryukyu 100 mon coins (similarly rare and expensive to this one) have these punches or not.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
@Albert, it was actually my phone (Galaxy S5) with flash on, then I hit the "auto-adjust" button on the photo editor. It works wonders.
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Moderator
 United States
34410 Posts |
Quote:
43.5mm, 33.2g Wow that's ginormous! "If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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Valued Member
United States
231 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6370 Posts |
I'm not familiar with the fabric of this type. Are you sure it is authentic?
At 33 grams, it must be quite thick.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
It came unauthenticated from a seller with strong feedback, and who wasn't located in China or eastern Europe.
The tricky thing about these later Japanese coins is that the country was about 125 years into a nearly crippling copper shortage. The 1 mon were almost 100% iron by this point, and even the 4 and 100 mon were typically about 70-80% copper; the rest being a smorgasbord of tin, zinc, lead, antimony, arsenic (!), iron etc. For these coins, a dark color is a good indicator that it is genuine; the technology to fake these is very simple but the mass counterfeiters use the same bronze stock as the rest of their junk.
I'll have to dig out the cartwheel for a side by side here; this coin is so thick it nearly burst the mylar 2x2 open.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Actually, I do have to correct myself; this coin does have a single edge punch, the character 'sa' at about 9:00 on the obverse side (next to the character 'ho').
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Replies: 9 / Views: 1,713 |
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Posted 09/20/2016 2:28 pm
