Two Far East Tokens For Translation

October 28, 2012 8:27 AM

Readers of far eastern languages: what do these tokens say, and what country did they come from?

I bought a lot of miscellaneous tokens, which included multiples of both of these two. The one on the left has very low relief and is hard to photograph so I adjusted levels a bit to try and improve readability. That one, though, does have a Playboy bunny logo in the middle, which is intriguing because I cannot find any other examples of it on the internet. Each token has the same on both sides (flipping them wouldn't tell anything new). Each is nearly identical to the size of a U.S quarter, and the edges are smooth; I figured they were arcade tokens. Anyone able to read Eastern languages able to tell me where they're from, what they say, etc?

posted by AzraelBrown to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

Best answer: The one on the left says "million" and the one on the right says "100,000 dollars" on the top and "Leisure Town" on the bottom. They're Japanese and the writing on them is katakana, which is used to write foreign words (so they say those things phonetically in English, more or less). (There is one kanji/character representing a whole word or concept, for the "thousand" in "100,000," if you care for that level of detail!)
posted by sunset in snow country at 8:33 AM on October 28, 2012

Best answer: These are Japanese. The face shown on the left appears to say "MILLION." The face on the right says "ONE MILLION DOLLARS -- LEISURETOWN." All of this is in phonetic English, with the exception of the number on the right face.

I assume you are right that these are arcade tokens.
posted by grobstein at 8:33 AM on October 28, 2012

Best answer: Doh! It does say one million, not 100,000. Head --> keyboard.
posted by sunset in snow country at 8:34 AM on October 28, 2012

Best answer: (The "万" in "100万" actually means 10,000, not 1,000, which is why both the right and the left sides of the coin say "One Million.")

EDIT: Ha, sorry, I keep jumping on sunset's toes.
posted by grobstein at 8:36 AM on October 28, 2012

Best answer: No worries, that's what I get for being so excited about finally being first on a Japanese question that I post before coffee!
posted by sunset in snow country at 8:41 AM on October 28, 2012

Response by poster: Awesome -- thanks! I didn't even realize at first the one on the left is the same on the top and bottom, just rotated.

And, since you guys are such a good help, I'll let you in on the ground floor: I have about a dozen of these all together, so I'll sell them to either of you for half price: $500,000 USD for each token :)
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:42 AM on October 28, 2012