Been awhile since I took a few photos of one of my coins, so I thought we'd look at this one today.

It is 1 troy oz of .9999 pure silver, so pretty sweet to have.

The other side features the typical image of Queen Elizabeth II. Nothing special.

It is the only coin I have from this series. I want to buy the dragon this year, but I haven't gotten it yet. But this ox one is nice enough.

The Ox from Oz, we might say. The Perth Mint started this series in 1996. That means we are now into the third year of the series, or the "Lunar Series III" as they put it. It's a fun enough theme.

I don't know if the Asian zodiac varies significantly between Japan and the rest of Asia. Just in case, my perspective is the Japan side of things. Here, ox is ushi. The normal kanji for ox is 牛 as on this coin, but specific for the zodiac we use the kanji 丑 for the ox. So I suppose by that alone we can tell this coin wasn't made in Japan. Maybe someone more knowledgable about China can tell us if they also use 丑 instead of 牛 there when referring to the zodiac ox.

The asian zodiac has five elements that go along with the animals, so the entire system is actually a 60 years super-cycle. The year of this coin, 2021, was a metal ox. On the old Japanese clock, the hour of the ox was 1-3am, and on the old calendar the month of the ox was the 12th month, which would be around January on the Western calendar.

The ox is thought to be reliable, strong, and dependable, calm, hard-working, and detail-oriented. Yet oxen don't communicate well, easily misunderstand other people's intentions, and get frustrated easily.

In the mythological story of the zodiac, the ruler of the heavens had a race to determine the order of the animals. The Ox, being large and strong, was winning. He came to a large river and was able to cross easily. But his good nature did him in. The clever rat asked him if he could hitch a ride on his back. The ox agreed, happy to be of service but also trusting that the rat would be grateful enough to allow him to finish first, as he deserved. But after they had crossed, the rat quickly leapt off and finished the race first, making the ox the second animal of the zodiac.

Overall

Anyway, a pretty nice coin. Get it if you can!

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.