For my third coin in my wishlist I'm going to jump to the big one. aI know previously I said no gold since I wanted to keep this somewhat realistic, but... why not, let's do some gold.

I mentioned this coin in brief in my post about the Lost Tokugawa Gold, so the name might ring a bell. That is, the koban (小判). This

^{via Wikipedia}

The koban was not the largest gold coin of the samurai era—it was for about 100 years dwarfed in both size and value by the ōban (one ōban being equal to 10 koban)—but it is perhaps the most iconic having been the standard for all of the Edo era (1603-1868). There were a few different sizes through the years and even within each standard there was variation from coin to coin. All in all, the koban ranged from about 4 monme to 5 monme, roughly 15 to 18.75 grams. Again the exact gold content varied throughout the Edo era, but it was typically set around 80-90% The later Edo koban coins did drop both in weight (falling to .88 monme a at the lowest) and gold content (dropping to 56.8% at the lowest).

Around 1600 when the koban was created it was set to be roughly equal to three koku of rice, 1 koku of rice being considered the amount of rice that a person needed in a year. Three koku is roughly 541 liters. That may seem strange conversion, but the economy was based on the payment of rice, which taxes were paid in. That gives us a little bit of an idea of the relative value of this coin; and showing that it was well out of the reach of the common man.

^{All the major variations - via Wikipedia}

With the koban, it's not only about half an ounce of gold, but it's also a very in demand historic coin, making prices really crazy. You'll be looking at at least $2k for one of these, and up. I've seen them go for around $10k for graded copies. I see one on eBay going for $4k right now.

I'd take any of them! Obviously the early larger and purer ones would be more ideal, but I'm not picky. Any would do! Someday I might buy one of the cheaper versions of it, but that day is not now. If anyone ever wanted to buy me one as a gift, however, well, I wouldn't refuse!

So this is #3 on my coin wishlist, joining #1 Tochigi Prefecture and #2 Silver Dragon 1 Yen.

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. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.