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My father had this bracelet made for my mother about
60 years ago, and she recently gave it to me.
The coins are all from the early 20th century—from
places in Asia. Some of the names have changed: Ceylon to Sri Lanka, Kwang Tung Province to Guangdong, in China.
Some of the coins feature a portrait of
Queen Victoria and some her grandson, George V.
[To see more of the Thursday Photo Challenge, go visit Dale's meme.]
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Thursday, October 30, 2014
Thursday Challenge—"money"
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This is EXACTLY what I want to do with my coins!
ReplyDeleteThe black background compliments nicely the metallic reflections of light.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the top middle one is a Japanese ten-sen coin. A sen is one-hundredth of a yen. Your coin was worth ten sen so a tenth of a yen. These coins were produced from 1920 to 1926 during the Taisho period. On the backside of the coin, at the bottom of it, the third and fourth characters from the right can give you the date.The first two characters from the right (Horizontal Japanese was read from right to left before the end of WWII) represent the Taisho period 正大 (today it is 大正) which began in 1912 and ended in 1926. The coin you can see here is Taisho 12 (年二十正大）so you would add that to 1911 (the first year began in 1912 so one would add one year less than the first year) for 1923.
This is way overkill but if you are curious about the actual date of your coin and I realize there is not much chance of that, I mean, who cares? Right? I don’t believe you will ever receive a comment other than this one that is more deserving of the label TMI. TOO MUCH INFORMATION!
But just in case, there is a chart below.
1912: 年一
1913: 年二
1914: 年三
1915: 年四
1916: 年五
1917: 年六
1918: 年七
1919: 年八
1920: 年九
1921: 年十
1922: 年一十
1923: 年二十
1924: 年三十
1925: 年四十
1926: 年五十
But please forgive me. I have a good idea how many times in your life you will feel like saying, “This is a Japanese ten-sen coin from the Taisho period that was minted in 19XX. It would take a thousand of these to buy something from a hundred-yen shop (our equivalent of a dollar shop).”
Oh, one thing you can do with it that is pretty trippy. You know how large the moon looks in the sky? Hold this coin out at arm’s length, maybe while it’s being used as a bracelet, and the full moon will fit completely inside the hole in the center.
When you think about it, that coin from your father is really quite a treasure. It’s value today is listed at the bottom left of the link, and it has increased in value more than 1,614 times!
I am glad to hear that your mother is still toughing it out. I guess one doesn’t say something like, “You go girl!” to someone like her. But I’m sure she just rocks.
TMI? Au contraire, TG! My Taisho coin looks exactly like the one in your link, so 1923—it's one of the newest ones here; the oldest (as far as I can tell) is the 1901 Hong Kong 10-cent piece with the image of Queen Victoria. Looking forward to the next full moon!
ReplyDeleteLove your photo of this striking bracelet. The background is perfect. Looks like a jewelers display. While the coins do have collector values, they are much more valuable as a family heirloom. Greetings and best wishes to your mother.
ReplyDeleteGreat shot and backstory. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAmazing bracelet! And nice photo!
ReplyDeleteThis one is for delving into history! Great idea!
ReplyDelete