I thought today we'd take a look at some of the Japanese coins I have featuring dragons.

For hundreds of years Japan was controlled by the Shogunate, the military government. The Shogunate basically kept the emperor prisoner in Kyoto while they ran the country in his name.

This started to change in 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Japanese waters with a letter from President Fillmore and demanded Japan open to trade with the US. This single event started a series of chain reactions that eventually led to a revolution against the Shogunate and a new government with the emperor at the head. It is debatable how much power the young emperor actually had, but at least he wasn't hidden away in Kyoto and not allowed to leave the palace anymore, so it was a positive move for him.

Anyway, the new government immediately went about modernizing the country as quickly as possible, which to them meant copying everything Western. That included a new money system centered on the yen which was set to be equal with the dollar; the yen was divided into 100 sen, and the sen was further subdivided into 10 rin. The first few coins of this new money system featured a dragon, and that is what we're looking at in this post.

I can't find an official name for the design but it is nicknamed Rising Sun Dragon (旭日竜, asahi ryu). I also can't find a designer. The Japanese wikipedia page just mentions "a group of Japanese artists". It did go through some variations. Notably, Japan didn't yet have the skill to mint coins very well when they first started, so Britain helped. The dragon scales in the first coins were more rectangular shaped. Later as Japan gained skill and equipment, they changed the design of the scales to be more triangular. I can't see this change on any of the coins I have. Does that give me an excuse to buy more?

The dragon didn't last long, only for a quarter of a century or so. From what info I can find, the dragon was removed from all coins due to the First Sino-Japanese War from 1894 to 1895. One reason for this is that the dragon in part symbolized China, as everyone knew that was where it came from. In light of the war, Japan decided they wanted to forge their own identity separate from China. Also Japan was eager to emulate Western ways and the dragon isn't a common symbol on Western money. Finally they wanted to move to symbols that were exclusive to Japan, which the dragon isn't.

It's a bit unfortunate, because this dragon was a great design. The replacement designs for all the coins were also nice enough, but this dragon was great. I don't have nearly a complete set of all the coins that featured the dragon, but I do have many of the silver ones. Let's look!

The smallest sen coin is a 1/2 sen. It's not silver so I've never chased it before, but in the future I'm going to just so I can get at least one of all the dragon coins. The smallest one I have at present with a dragon is a 10 sen coin. This one:

Next up, I have one 20 sen coin with a dragon. I have plenty other 20 sen coins with other designs, but this dragon 20 sen is a pricy coin!

Next up I have a 50 sen dragon as well.

Finally, I have a 1 yen coin featuring a dragon. This coin is great. I'd love to get more, but these coins go for crazy prices with collectors. I understand that since it's 90% silver, a ton of these were melted down. As a result, I suppose it has become rare enough to command high prices from collectors.

And here is the entire group together. Nice family shot!

In addition to the 1/2 sen I mentioned above, there is also a 1 sen, 2 sen, and 5 sen, all of which featured the dragon at one point. None of them are silver, but I'm going to start keeping my eyes peeled for them just so I can get more dragons.

Thoughts?

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.