Hello Silver & Gold stackers! Another week and I have another Japanese coin for you! This is the first ¥100 coin printed, the first of what is now three designs for that coin (four if we include the 1964 Olympic ¥100). This is also the best designed of the four.

I'll give some basic coin stats, then we'll look at both sides, and then I'll give some more general info!

Sound fun? Let's go!

Stats

Some basic coin stats for you:

• 4.8g
• 22.6mm diameter
• 1.7mm thickness
• edge: reeded

and most importantly, it's 60% silver, so that means about 2.88 grams of silver. Not great, but any silver is good silver, eh?

Let's look at the coin a little more.

Front Side

A phoenix with the text nihon koku (日本国) "State of Japan" above it and hyaku en (百円) "100 yen" below.

Back Side

A raident sun surrounded by a ring of sakura. Around the coin it reads "100 yen" and shōwa sanjūni nen (昭和三十二年) "The 32nd year of Shōwa" which is the Japanese way of displaying dates, 1957 in our Western way.

About the Phoenix

The phoenix (hōō in Japanese) was featured on a lot of Japanese money, both coins and bills, in the past. I believe the only place you'll find it on modern currency is on the ¥10000 banknote, though that may be changing as all paper bills are getting new designs next year. It is considered a symbol of virtue, as well as for the imperial house.

Overall

Overall I love the design of this coin. Out of all four ¥100 coins (three silver and the modern one, which is cupronickel) this is my favorite design. The phoenix on front is nicely designed, and on the back I really like that radiant sun surrounded by sakura. That radiant sun is very similar to the one we've seen on the 20 sen (which I covered here). It was also used on many of the other sen coins. .

This design only stayed around for two years before they switched to the rice stalk design which they then stayed with for seven years before they both removed all silver and changed to the boring modern design. Well, that's not fair. I do like the front of the modern one which features sakura, but the back is so boring and plain it ruins the entire coin.

I was looking up the reason why they abandoned this design so quickly. It seems like there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding the design. This was the first time the phoenix was used on a coin postwar, and as the phoenix is a symbol of the emperor, many people thought it was inapproprate to put on a coin being that they wanted to distance themselves from the country's militaristic past.

I can understand that reason. It's a shame they also changed the back design when they removed the phoenix. Look at the boring modern back design? I mean, c'mon...

^{I normally prefer minimalism, but this modern design is just ugly}

Anyway, only 60% silver of 4.8g, giving us 2.88g of silver. Not really very much, so it terms of silver stacking this one probably isn't one of the better choices. Still—interesting to have this bit of history. And melt value is around $2.21, so that's something anyway.

A few more photos to enjoy:

^{With a 20 sen coin on top}

^{Laying on top a ¥1000 coin}

^{All three}

❦

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.