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10 yen coins2/17/2024 ![]() Goo shrine worship hall at left, portrait of Wake no Kiyomaro at right. 日本貨幣カタログ = The Catalog of Japanese Currency. Once you see it, you know where point (c) is (using the above graphic).Japan Numismatic Dealers Association (editor) 2022. Note, the era name has two characters and their order remains internally consistent as they are looked at as a unit.īasically, look for the Nen/年 and you will know which way to read the coin’s date as the Nen/年 is always the last part of the date. They both mean exactly the same thing, and the character order is the same " a b c "-it's just where you start and which way you move your eyes that change. Nen-Era year-Era name kanji to Era name kanji-Era year-Nen Beginning in Showa 23 (1948) the Western style of reading from left to right was adopted (with one exception). Prior to Showa 23, right to left was correct. That is not to say the characters are mirrored, they are merely read in reverse order. The initial coinage followed that the coin dates and legends were read right to left. Original Chinese kanji were not read in the Western tradition of left to right. The next challenge is that the reading order for the dates has reversed over time. Also the use of his given name is also in poor taste and the Emperor really should be referred to by his title “His Imperial Majesty the Emperor”, or as ‘the current Emperor’). (By the way, it is only after death that the Emperor is referred to by the name of the era. 1913 was thus Taisho 2 ( 大正 二 年), starting January 1st. The Taisho coins were thus designated 大正元年, with the first two characters representing the Taisho name and the second two referring to the first year (not using the 一 for '1'), followed by the year/nen character. In 1912 it was both Meiji 45 (through July 30th, the death of the Emperor) and Taisho 1. The ‘gan’/ 元 refers to ‘first’ and the ‘nen’/ 年 to year. On coinage this is seen by the utilization of the ‘gan nen’ or 元年. Thus (unless there is a death on December 31st) there is overlap between in one calendar year between the eras of the old and new Emperors. However, the first year of the era ends December 31st and the remainder years follow the Gregorian calendar. ![]() With regards to the changing of the era name and coin dating-the first year of the era name change occurs immediately upon the ascension of the new Emperor. For example 1990 is the second year of the Heisei era, so Heisei 2 is 1990, Heisei 3 is 1991 and Heisei 4 is 1992 etc. The regnal (era) years are correlated with the Gregorian calendar, but they are based on the named era. ![]() Or, another way: Era Name + Era year + Nen Each dated coin has a 2 kanji era name, followed by a numerical value designating the year, followed by the ‘nen’ 年 or year symbol. Thus, since 1867 there have been four eras: In other words, a new era name will occur only upon the ascension of the next Emperor. This was changed to the Meiji era in 1868 and since then the ‘one reign/one era’ rule has been codified. When Mutsuhito assumed the throne in 1867 it was the Keio era. ![]() In the past the eras did not necessarily correlate with the Emperor's reign as they do today, thus current events or issues could play a part in the naming of a new era. The use of the era system goes back over 1000 years. The first thing to understand about dating Japanese coins is that the dates are based on the era name, followed by the year of the era.
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