quote:
The latest Emperor started in 1989, Year one. His name is one character followed by the japanese number.
Sorry friend, but you are wrong in multiple respects.
1. The Emperor's name does
not appear on Japanese coins.
2. Every Nengo (era name), at least since the beginning of the 13th Century has been written with two characters and there has never been one with a single character.
3. The character "Ichi" ("1") is never used on coins minted in the first year of an era.
The "Nengo" or name assigned to the era of an Emperor's reign, forms part of every Japanese date, and therefore appears on all modern coins minted since 1867.
Current Emperor Akihito will be known as the Heisei Emperor after his death. (Although Wikipedia translates "Heisei" as "Peace Everywhere", the more accepted translation in Japan is "Achieving Peace".)
If you will look at the ¥5 at the top of the original post you will see the four characters "Hei" "Sei" "Yon" "Nen" ("Heisei 4 year")in the lower part of the second picture.
The second coin is a Showa 56 (1981) ¥10. That one's date characters (also on the second picture of the coin) are "Sho" "Wa" "Go" "Ju" "Roku" "Nen". Numbers between from 10 to 99 are read as decade number, ten, final number (if any). The date on that ¥10 is read as 5 x 10 + 6 = 56.
A Japanese date in the first nine years of an era would have four characters - the two characters of the Nengo, one character for the year number, and the Nen character. After that the even decade years will have five characters - inserting "Ju" ("10") just before the Nen. The rest of the years (<100) will have six characters, with an additional number between Ju and Nen.
The character "Gan" ("First") is used in the first year of an era, instead of the character "Ichi". Because in modern times the era begins and ends with the reign of an Emperor some years on the western calendar have two designations in Japan. 1989 was such a year, as Showa 64 in early January, and as Heisei Gan upon the death of the Showa Emperor (known as Hirohito during his lifetime). (Coins were minted with both dates)
Western numerals have been used between the Nengo and Nen on ¥50 coins (as in the third coin pictured) since Showa 42 (1967) and on ¥100 coins since Showa 39 (1964), but only for the Nengo year. The western calendar date has only appeared on commemorative coins for Olympic Games held in Japan - 1964, 1972, and 1998 for the Tokyo, Sapporo and Nagoya events; but in each of those years the full Japanese date was also used.
Posted 03/11/2006 11:12 pm
