How Do You Read The Year On Japanese Coins?
On Japanese coins, the date is recorded by writing the name of the emperor and the year of his reign. On Japanese coins, the date consists of four to six characters that is divided into three different sections. The first two characters, which can be in any order, is the name of the Emperor. The next one to three characters is the year of the Emperor’s reign. The last character is the word year. You will need to be able to recognize some basic Japanese symbols in order to calculate the date. If there are a number of symbols on the coin, look for the Japanese symbol for year which is “nen.” This will always be the last character in the date. Look at the first two characters to determine the name of the reign era, this is known as the “nengo.” Remember, the characters can be in any order. Coins from 1989 are from the Heisei era. Coins dated between 1926 and 1989 are from the Showa era. The Taisho era puts the coin between 1912 and 1926. The Meiji era was from 1868 until 1912. Look at the
