comments? corrections?
email me at
lukerobt@history.ucsb.edu
This is Page 3 of Kokin kousei, Shinsen zeni kagami (Corrected Against Past and Current Records, A New Selected Mirror of Cash Coins).
Note the red circles on various coins. This appears throughout the book and probably made by a coin collector who owned this book, and marked the coins he owned by stamping the red circle in this book.
Note the word "SHU" penciled in by the coin on column 6. Although most coins are priced according to silver standard, this coin is priced in gold. One shu was worth about 250 mon of copper and this coin was valued at 2 shu--equal to 500 mon or to 5 monme of silver. Since there are 5 monme coins on this page I cannot figure out why this one is priced in gold. Strange.
Speaking of strange and of 5 monme value: notice the two Batavian Dutch coins at the top of the second column. They must have been rare in Japan then. I also laugh because the top coin is printed upside down--just as sometimes westerners today display Asian coins upside down on ebay.
