Departments
Intermediate Japanese - Free Online Course
KOBAN
小判
"a koban coin"
The koban was a gold coin minted under the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1600s. If you travel to Japan today, though, you aren’t likely to come across any of these coins, as they have long since gone out of circulation.
Nevertheless, the koban persists today in a common Japanese metaphor which more or less corresponds to the English phrase “pearls before swine.” The expression neko ni koban / 猫に小判 (“a koban before a cat”) notes a situation in which a recipient is unworthy of a gift or an advantage. This is based on the self-evident notion that a cat would be unable to derive any benefit from a gold coin.