page_title: Trade dollar
section_title: Japan
hierarchical_section_title: Trade dollar / History / Japan
caption_attribution_description: English: 1 yen (Boekigin)-M8-silver 日本語: 貿易銀（一円銀貨）明治八年
context_page_description: Trade dollars are silver coins minted as trade coins by various countries to facilitate trade with China and the Orient. They all approximated in weight and fineness to the Spanish dollar, which had set the standard for a de facto common currency for trade in the Far East.
context_section_description: The Japanese Trade Dollar was a dollar coin, issued from 1875 to 1877. It was minted of 27.22 g of silver with a fineness of .900 (90%). The Yen coin had 26.96 g of silver at that time, and otherwise nearly identical in design to the trade dollar.
  2,736,000 coins of this type were minted, the vast majority in 1876-77. When Japan introduced the gold standard in 1897, the silver 1 yen coins, including the trade dollars, were demonetized. The majority of the trade dollars were counterstamped with the character "gin" (Japanese for "silver"). The Osaka mint placed the mark on the left side of the reverse, the Tokyo mint on the right. The coins were then released for use in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, Korea and Lüshunkou.
caption: Japanese Trade Dollar dated 1875
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