I've spent the last month or so cataloguing my late grandfather's world coin collection. He spent some time managing currency during the occupation in Japan, and brought back some pretty neat pieces. Among them, I found this cheeky fellow:
I posted about it on Twitter, and someone eventually pointed me toward this auction on a Japanese language site. Relevant text translated reads:
[YH-0817] Used old coin Sendai Tsuho Mouse Square coin Local currency
And indeed if you check the lettering of the top, visible character, it does seem roughly similar to what's on known Sendai Tsuho coins (仙, eg). Left and right seem like standard 寶 and 通. Naturally the bottom character is being consumed by the mouse, but you could imagine it might have once read 臺.
I'm not sure whether this was an actual minted coin or a modification someone did as a bit, but I thought I'd share it at least. If it would be useful, I'd also be happy to get some dimensions and a weighing, and post in the catalog . . . somewhere. I don't really know where it belongs, honestly. Exo
Thanks for any feedback of course, and profound thanks for building and populating this site; it's been indispensable as I work through this enormous project. 🙏



