Help I.d.ing Old Japanese Coins

If you can't find on Numista, then I don't know about Japanese, I use this for Chinese. About all I can offer.

http://www.calgarycoin.com/referenc...a/china8.htm
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/japon-1.html

From your photos. you appear to have inherited a wonderful collection. Here is a link that you might find useful:-

https://www.imes.boj.or.jp/cm/engli...nt/#Medieval

Also:- http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty...pancash.html

If you really want to study and fully identify these Japanese coins you should invest in a copy of one of the best books available: Early Japanese Coins by David Hartill.

Good luck!

Lovely coins!

Up close pictures would certainly help; just do a few at a time and we'll get through them in no time!

I hate to he the one to bear bad news, but I can say at a minimum that many of the coins are not properly attributed. As outlined in the Japanese Mint website, there were a few general phases to pre-Meiji Japanese coinage:

- Up to 680 AD - No coinage issued at all, strictly barter/commodities trading

- 680-708 - "Fuhon-sen" made as a technology demonstration; only about 30 coins from a single cache known, all owned by the Japanese government.

- 708-958 - "Twelve Antique" coins; 12 designs made over 250 years, but mismanagement led to the collapse of a monetized economy. The legal tender status was cancelled and nearly all were melted - some exist in private collections; the price tag is usually four or five figures. Fakes are rampant and convincing.

- 958-1608 - Legal reversion to commodities economy, although cash coins circulated in local and illegal economies. Coins pedigreed to Japanese workshops are known as "bitasen" or "bad copper" while coins found both inside and outside of Japan and of uncertain origin are called "shimasen". Both are available and affordable, although it is tough work to attribute them, as all are copies of Song dynasty coins.

- 1659-1685 - Export coins made to bolster trade from Nagasaki. These were made by the Tokugawa clan of very high quality copper, and are copies of Song coins, but well-documented and usually with distinguishing characteristics. This is likely your "Genyu seal script" coin.

- 1626-1867 - All 1 mon coins standardized to "Kan-Ei Tsuho" design. Except for a handful of varieties, these are common as dirt and sell for only a few dollars each. Copper quality began to decline in the early 1700s, and the coins were mostly iron by the 1800s. Many intermediate specimens are seemingly good copper, but are magnetic due to being alloyed with iron to stretch the copper further.

In addition to the 1 mon, there was a 10 mon (1708), Kanei type 4 mon (1768, 21 waves; 1769-1867, 11 waves), and then you already have the Bunkyu Eiho and Tempo Tsuho attributed. There was an explosion of private copper after the opening of the ports in the 1850s, but many types are expensive and heavily faked.