Let's continue my 12 days of christmas coin wishlist. Yes yes, most of you have timed your wishlist to end on Christmas, but let's not forget that the actual Twelve Days of Christmas starts on Christmas Day and continues until the fifth of January. That in mind, let's continue the fun! (or the delusion as Hive account@bitcoinman puts it)

So far I've looked at a the Gate of Nikko (Day 1), a Silver Dragon Yen (Day 2), and a Gold Koban (Day 3). Today for day 4 I'm going to return to the same set that the first coin is part of, but instead of the coin for Tochigi Prefecture, I'm going to pick the coin for Aichi Prefecture.

You'll remember I picked the Tochigi coin because in addition to liking the coin, my wife is from there. For the Aichi coin I have a similar reason: in addition to thinking it's a great image, I live in Aichi.

Let's go over the coin.

It's the same basic stats as the first one. 1oz of 0.999 fine silver, 40mm diameter, helically ridged edges, and limited to only 100,000.

The reverse side is the same as the Tochigi coin: a few snowflakes, some cherry blossoms, the moon, and the text 地方自治六十年 (chihō jichi rokujūnen), which means "60th Anniversary of Local Government Autonomy" and refers to a 1947 law that gave the individual prefectures more power and autonomy than they had previously had. The only difference from the Tochigi coin is the date: 平成２２年 (heisei nijūninen), or the "22nd year of Heisei", which was 2010 on the Western calendar.

The obverse side has a few images specific to Aichi Prefecture. First and foremost is the fish thing. That is called a Shachihoko, often shortened to just shachi. It is a creature from Japanese mythology with the head of a dragon and the body of a carp. According to the folklore, the shachi has the ability to swallow huge amounts of water and to control the rain. Due to this, a pair of shachi (male and female) were often built on the top of old buildings to prevent fire.

Shachi appear on many old buildings, but the most famous pair in Japan would be the golden shachi (kinshachi) on the top of Nagoya castle. The very original golden shachi were made of copper with a thick layer of gold applied by pounding gold coins into thin sheets. It is said that 17,975 ryō in coins was used for them (that is nearly 18,000 of these coins). Unfortunately the castle was bombed in WWII and destroyed in the resulting fire (guess the shachi failed in their only job!). The current golden shachi on the castle are covered with a 18-carat gold plate .15m thick.

The other two images are the rabbit-ear iris (called kakitsubata), which is the Aichi Prefecture official flower, and the sand beach of the Atsumi Peninsula (the right side of Mikawa Bay), which is the famous spawning area of the loggerhead sea turtles. I believe the beach is Cape Irago, but I haven't seen that offically listed anywhere.

Anyway, there you go. The next coin on my wishlist. So who's buying it for me??

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.