4 ms·

Except they were copper coins, not silver coins.

M_Grey 10y ago
Japan is not famous for its natural resources of metal, especially prior to the 19th century, so maybe that makes sense too.
- txutxu 10y ago
  Katanas did come to my mind when reading your comment, but I find this more contradictory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Japanese_iron-working_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Japanese_iron-working_te...
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Well, that amazing technology was the result of only having iron sands to work with, "Tamahagane". Lots of impurities you have to work out, hence the hammering and folding as well.
jdmichal 10y ago
Why does the metallic composition of the coins matter? It doesn't effect the point at all, so your use of "except" is confusing to me. Only point I can see is that copper is not a traditional bullion metal. I'd argue that that's up to the trade partners to decide, not us centuries and an industrial revolution later. For instance, aluminum was considered a precious metal until the late 1800's when new smelting processes drastically increased supply.
- mratzloff 10y ago
  Yes, that's true; I had been thinking about it in terms of traditional bullion, which I suppose is a Western-centric viewpoint. Even China only recently ramped up their copper production with industrialization.
- runeks 10y ago
  Copper is as traditional a bullion metal as either gold, silver or iron, it's just a matter of what historical period we're talking about. Commodity money evolved organically over thousands of years from salt, to iron/copper, to silver+gold and finally to gold alone. Gold was better suited as money because it was rarer, and therefore carried more value per weight unit, and it's fairly useless for metal work because it's relatively soft.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  That holds for coins used as currency, but not necessarily for coins used for bullion. Krugerands, the definitive bullion coin, don't have denominations printed. Their value is based only on their metal. With ancient coins there is a very fine line between a valuable piece of currency, and an attractive lump of silver. I suspect that by the time this coin is in Japan, it is worth more than its weight suggests. But does that intrinsic value appear because it is currency or simply novelty? I think the latter. This is a bullion coin worth more purely by circumstance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krugerrand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krugerrand
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    My personal impression is that coinage is complicated. I suspect they started out as weights for measuring out a certain value of grain or similar. Then you stamp the weights with the mark of the sovereign that validates them. Then at some point it becomes just as easy to just swap weights around as bring out the scales.
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      There were more primitive systems of currency before authorities started endorsing coins. Hoards of bronze-age axeheads, few of which show signs of use, some that couldn't ever be, point to them as a means of moving wealth via standardized units. A standardized shape of metal used in trade... sounds like coinage to me.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
kafkaesq 10y ago
Which would explain why they weren't melted down. (They might have just been there in the mix, to make change for larger transactions among pieces no longer surviving).

Japan is not famous for its natural resources of metal, especially prior to the 19th century, so maybe that makes sense too.

txutxu 10y ago
Katanas did come to my mind when reading your comment, but I find this more contradictory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Japanese_iron-working_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Japanese_iron-working_te...
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Well, that amazing technology was the result of only having iron sands to work with, "Tamahagane". Lots of impurities you have to work out, hence the hammering and folding as well.

jdmichal 10y ago

Why does the metallic composition of the coins matter? It doesn't effect the point at all, so your use of "except" is confusing to me. Only point I can see is that copper is not a traditional bullion metal. I'd argue that that's up to the trade partners to decide, not us centuries and an industrial revolution later. For instance, aluminum was considered a precious metal until the late 1800's when new smelting processes drastically increased supply.

mratzloff 10y ago
Yes, that's true; I had been thinking about it in terms of traditional bullion, which I suppose is a Western-centric viewpoint. Even China only recently ramped up their copper production with industrialization.
runeks 10y ago
Copper is as traditional a bullion metal as either gold, silver or iron, it's just a matter of what historical period we're talking about. Commodity money evolved organically over thousands of years from salt, to iron/copper, to silver+gold and finally to gold alone. Gold was better suited as money because it was rarer, and therefore carried more value per weight unit, and it's fairly useless for metal work because it's relatively soft.
sandworm101 10y ago
That holds for coins used as currency, but not necessarily for coins used for bullion. Krugerands, the definitive bullion coin, don't have denominations printed. Their value is based only on their metal. With ancient coins there is a very fine line between a valuable piece of currency, and an attractive lump of silver. I suspect that by the time this coin is in Japan, it is worth more than its weight suggests. But does that intrinsic value appear because it is currency or simply novelty? I think the latter. This is a bullion coin worth more purely by circumstance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krugerrand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krugerrand
- digi_owl 10y ago
  My personal impression is that coinage is complicated. I suspect they started out as weights for measuring out a certain value of grain or similar. Then you stamp the weights with the mark of the sovereign that validates them. Then at some point it becomes just as easy to just swap weights around as bring out the scales.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    There were more primitive systems of currency before authorities started endorsing coins. Hoards of bronze-age axeheads, few of which show signs of use, some that couldn't ever be, point to them as a means of moving wealth via standardized units. A standardized shape of metal used in trade... sounds like coinage to me.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

kafkaesq 10y ago

Which would explain why they weren't melted down. (They might have just been there in the mix, to make change for larger transactions among pieces no longer surviving).