Coins of Japan

There is something very fascinating in the study of Far Eastern coins. They do not appeal to us through any pictorial effect, but a subtle and impersonal charm pervades their inscriptions and the sentiments which they set forth. They are written in characters which are a manifest survival of the picture writing of early man. He wrote, that is to say, scored or scratched, various outline sketches of his doings and the more intimate facts of his surroundings, on bone, clay or other material. Previous to this, he had learned to utter speech sounds, (names nouns, by which things are known), in association with the various objects of his environment. Originally, these names were short and simple sounds, given probably, in imitation of some notable feature in the thing which they served to distinguish. Longer words were formed by joining the simpler ones, and thus it is that language is capable of being resolved into simple sounds or syllables, which latter are again into elementary sounds, namely vowels and consonants.

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Table of Contents:

Copyright

COINS OF JAPAN

PREFACE

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION

I. PREHISTORIC AND PROTOHISTORIC

II. THE ANTIQUE COINS

III MEDIEVAL COINS

IV. FROM TENSHO TO MEIJI

V. PROVINCIAL COINS

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