Item: i113659

 Authentic Coin of:

Japan
Showa – Emperor: 25 December 1926 – 7 January 1989
1934 (Year 9) Silver 50 Sen 22mm (4.94 grams) 0.720 Silver (0.1146 oz. ASW)
Reference: Y# 50 (1928-38)
五 十 錢 , Vertical value and denomination flanked by phoenix, paulownia crest flanked by karakusa sprigs, chrysanthemum on top.
❀ 本 日 大 ❀ 年 九 和 昭, Sunburst in centre flanked by cherry blossoms.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Emperor Shōwa, (昭和, 29 April 1901 – 7 January 1989) better known in English by his personal name Hirohito (裕仁), was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling over the Empire of Japan from 1926 until 1947, after which he was Emperor of the state of Japan until his death in 1989. He was succeeded by his fifth child and eldest son, Akihito. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had seven children, two sons and five daughters. By 1979, Hirohito was the only monarch in the world with the title “emperor”. Hirohito was the longest-lived and longest-reigning historical Japanese emperor and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world.

At the start of his reign, Japan was already one of the great powers—the ninth largest economy in the world, the third-largest naval power, and one of the four permanent members of the council of the League of Nations. He was the head of state under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan during Japan’s imperial expansion, militarization, and involvement in World War II. After Japan’s surrender, he was not prosecuted for war crimes as many other leading government figures were. His degree of involvement in wartime decisions remains controversial. During the post-war period, he became the symbol of the state of Japan under the post-war constitution and Japan’s recovery. By the end of his reign, Japan had emerged as the world’s second-largest economy.

In Japan, reigning emperors are known only as “the Emperor.” He is now referred to primarily by his posthumous name, Shōwa, which is the name of the era coinciding with his reign.

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan’s name mean “sun-origin”, which is why Japan is often referred to as the “Land of the Rising Sun”.

Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which together comprise about ninety-seven percent of Japan’s land area. Japan has the world’s tenth-largest population, with over 126 million people. Honshū’s Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, particularly from Western European influence, has characterized Japan’s history. From the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century, which was only ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West. Nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection followed before the Meiji Emperor was restored as head of state in 1868 and the Empire of Japan was proclaimed, with the Emperor as a divine symbol of the nation. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victories in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected legislature called the Diet.

A major economic power, Japan is a developed country and has the world’s third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the world’s fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the world’s fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer. Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the world’s eighth largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan ranks high in metrics of prosperity such as the Human Development Index, with the Japanese population enjoying the highest life expectancy of any country in the world and the infant mortality rate being the third lowest globally.