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Odd Asian 'Mickey Mouse' Token- Can Someone Tell Me What This Is?

I acquired two of these a plastic bin full of miscellaneous tokens at the B&M yesterday. I'm a US Coin guy and don't know a lot about foreign coins, but I found them interesting and they were cheap.

It's made of aluminum and is about the size of a US quarter. It appears to have a caracature of the post-1920's/30's Mickey Mouse (though it isn't completely accurate, i.e. the bow tie) on one side, and what looks like the rising sun either rising from a 'military helmet' or wearing a 'military helmet' (I don't know which is right-side up) on the other. Those are just my impressions of the designs and could be completely wrong on all counts.

Does anyone here know what this is? Thank you in advance!


You Suck! Awarded 6/2008- 1901-O Micro O Morgan, 8/2008- 1878 VAM-123 Morgan, 9/2022 1888-O VAM-1B3 H8 Morgan | Senior Regional Representative- ANACS Coin Grading. Posted opinions on coins are my own, and are not an official ANACS opinion.

Comments

  • Paradise Treasure Yuan (園樂 寶 元). If that helps :D

  • SapyxSapyx Posts: 1,977 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 29, 2023 5:59PM

    Whenever I see an object like this, my first instinct is "Japanese pachinko token", but I don't think that instinct is correct here. For starters, the script is "Chinese characters", and while you can write Japanese using these characters (where it is called "kanji"), pachinko tokens are much more commonly written in Katakana script. Pachinko tokens are also almost always made of nickel or nickel-plated brass, rather than aluminium.

    So I think this is actually from China. Or rather, from Taiwan or Hong Kong where "traditional" Chinese characters are still in use; communist China uses a "simplified" character set and would use different characters to say the same thing.

    I suspect the "mouse" isn't consciously trying to imitate Mickey, it's just that all anthropomorphic mice tend to look much the same (this guy looks more like Chuck E. Cheese to me). If I had to guess, it may have something to do with the "Chinese zodiac" and the Year of the Rat.

    I suspect your "military helmet" is just a flower.

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  • TomBTomB Posts: 20,697 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I also don't believe it is a 1920s/1930s version of Mickey Mouse and don't believe it is a military helmet. It appears to be much more recent than that vintage and the mouse/rat would likely be much more generic in nature than our familiar Disney Mickey.

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  • Sergey74Sergey74 Posts: 160 ✭✭✭

    It looks like slot machine token.

    Peace.

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