Japan 2016 Tokyo 47 Prefectures 1000 Yen Silver Coin

Description:

The Japan Mint is honoring the 47 Prefectures of Japan with a colorful 1,000-yen silver coin series. The history and beauty of each prefecture is captured in full color on the coin’s obverse, while each coin’s reverse features a beautifully engraved design emblematic of the 47 prefectures. The Japan Mint allocates up to 10% of the total authorized mintage of each coin for distributors in the overseas market.

The Japan 2016 Tokyo 47 Prefectures 1,000 Yen Silver Coin is struck in .9999 fine silver. It is the 47th and last coin in the eight-year-long series.

Obverse:

The city of Tokyo (東京都) has served as the capital of Japan since the restoration of the Japanese Empire in 1868 under Emperor Meiji (ruled 1867-1912). Approximately 13 million people–about 10% of the entire Japanese population–live there.

In the forefront of the coin’s design is a colorized rendition of Tokyo Tower as seen from below and at a slight angle. The red and white tower was built in 1958 to provide a television broadcasting signal to the entire Kanto region of Japan. Conceived by architect and engineer Tachū Naitō (内藤 多仲), its design is similar to that of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Tokyo Tower stands 1,092 ft. tall and is the second-tallest building in Japan, after the Tokyo Skytree that replaced it in 2012.

The position of the tower on the obverse is slightly to the right of center. This creates a small triangle of water in the middle of the design that is suggestive of a hole; there was often a square hole in the center of early Japanese coins.

Between the tower and a representative skyline is Rainbow Bridge, a suspension bridge with two tiers of throughway traffic. The top deck carries the Metropolitan Expressway Route 11 train (the Daiba line); the bottom deck features a roadway for automobile traffic. It was built in 1993 and spans almost 3,012 feet across Tokyo Bay.

A trio of black-headed seagulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus), called yurikamome (ゆりかもめ), flies above the scene. Not coincidentally, Rainbow Bridge connects the city to the harbor and the Tokyo Waterfront New Transit Line, which is also called “Yurikamome”.

Below the gulls and to the left is the name of the city 東京都 TOKYO in both Japanese and English. The inscription 日本国 (Japan) wraps around the top of the design.

The water of the bay and the sky above are colored with darker and lighter shades of blue, respectively.

Reverse:

Common reverse design for the 47 Prefecture 1000 Yen Silver Coin Series. State-of-the-Art mint technology is applied to the center of the largest snow crystal to make the numbers “47” (for the 47 Prefectures) and “60” (representing the 60th Anniversary of Enforcement of the Local Autonomy Law) appear alternately when viewed from different angles. At the bottom of the coin is the inscription: 平成28年, which denotes that the coin was issued in the 28th year of the Heisei era. The denomination 1000 Yen is presented in English and Japanese.

Coin Specifications:

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