Japan, Nagasaki Trade Cash Coins (1659-1685 Ce)(C)

These coins were specifically produced by the Tokugawa Shogunate for trade with China, Vietnam, Taiwan and Java via the port city of Nagasaki. Japan was a great exporter of silver and copper to China; the latter being struck into coins for export. The inscriptions of the coins were often based on older Song Dynasty or Ming Dynasty prototypes and became so numerous in Vietnam, that they became the de facto local currency. The coins disprove the erroneous idea that Tokugawa era Japan was closed to foreign trade.