Note 126 — Chapter XLV

It is said that these coins are called koban, but that ancient name can hardly be applied at the same time to three coins, of such different values. The old koban of Kämpfer would be worth at present rates about eleven taels; the new koban of 1708 not quite six taels. For the above account of the Japanese coins and monetary system, on which subject the official report of the two American commissioners is rather blind, I have been much indebted to an elaborate paper on the trade to Japan, written by S. Wells Williams, the Chinese interpreter to the embassy, and originally published in the “N. Y. Times.” No person in the fleet was so well prepared by previous studies and the experience of a long residence in China and familiarity with Chinese literature to make intelligent observations in Japan. Japan has, like Europe, its numismatology. Jancigny mentions a Japanese treatise on this subject, published at Yedo in 1822, in seven volumes, which describes five hundred and fifty coins, with colored prints (the color being given in the impression) of most of them. The Japanese coins are not struck, but cast in a mould. They are, however, exceedingly well finished, and the impression sharp. Siebold speaks of halfs, quarters, and sixteenths of a koban in gold; and of eighths and sixteenths of a koban in silver; and, according to his account, there are in some provinces zeni, and eighths of a koban in paper notes. This practice might have been borrowed from the Chinese—paper money being one of the numerous inventions in which they anticipated us of the West. [See also “The Coins of Japan” (Munro).—Edr.]