Japanese Coins

Today was a slow and quite rainy day plus it was a national holiday (the autumn equinox) so I spent most of the time at home.  Before I get to cooking my first full dinner in Japan (upcoming post!) I will present the coins of Japan.

Japanese currency is the yen 円.  Japan has 6 coins in normal circulation.  From what I heard they do not change and don't really have special versions that are widely circulated so each denomination has looked virtually the same since the 60s.  There are 500, 100, 50, 10, 5 (written in Japanese 五), and 1 yen coins:

The 500yen coin is basically the largest valued coin in normal circulation in the world (currently equivalent to roughly $6CAD). It has several anti-counterfeiting measures such as a solid bar or 500円 inside the 0s when viewed from different angles:

The 50yen and 5yen coins have a hole in the middle.  The designs all seem to have plants.  The 500yen coin has the Paulownia tree leaves, the 100yen has cherry blossoms (sakura!), the 50yen has Chrysanthemum flowers, the 5yen has rice, and the 1yen has a young tree.  The 10yen coin has an image of Kyoto's Byodoin Buddhist temple.

What is interesting to note is that the year shown on the coins is the year in the Japanese era (which in the last few hundred years have corresponded to the reign of the emperor).  So 2010 is the 22nd year in the Heisei period which started in 1989 when the old emperor died and the new one took over.  When filling out government documentation, you often have to provide current date and other dates such as birth dates in this numbering system.

You quite often see coins from the previous Showa era (which go up to year 64).  On the 100yen and 50yen coins, the year is in Arabic numerals, whereas on the other coins it is using Japanese numerals. For example, on these 6 10yen coins, the top 3 are from the Heisei (current) era and are years 5 (五), 8 (八), and 15(十五) (corresponding to 1993, 1996, and 2003).  The bottom 3 are from the Showa era, years 49 (四十九), 55 (五十五), and 63 (六十三) (corresponding to 1974, 1980, and 1988).

Ok, it's 5pm and time to cook!