There was something about it that caught Kerry Richardson’s eye.

It was a Japanese banknote, the 57-year-old amateur collector knew — displayed in what he described as “the discount bin”of a local coin shop — but otherwise its story was a mystery.

Then he saw the handwritten note, etched in Japanese across the back.

So he bought it and started investigating.

“I knew it was old. I knew it was Japanese. And it looked interesting,” Richardson recently explained.

The truth is, the note — which was minted in 1945 and once worth half a yen — is essentially worthless today. But that’s only part of the story. As Richardson discovered during the research that followed his purchase, its journey to Tacoma traces back to the late Shigeo “Jack” Tanimoto, a U.S. soldier, World War II hero and second-generation Japanese American.

Tanimoto wrote the message that adorns the bank note. Roughly translated, it reads, “I’m praying for your happiness” — which Richardson learned after sharing a picture with friends in Japan, where he lived for 18 months when he was younger. That’s where his journey of discovery started.

Eventually, it led him some 700 miles away, to a small town near Sacramento, California, where Herb Tanimoto, Shigeo’s son, had no idea such an artifact existed.

Richardson, an information technology consultant from Fife Heights, tracked down Herb Tanimoto and his sister, Betty Ann, through the magic of the internet and his background in genealogical research. Last week, he described piecing together Shigeo “Jack” Tanimoto’s story — largely from online databases documenting Japanese American military service — from his time as a young Nisei in the U.S., to his heroism as an interpreter with the 27th Division in the Pacific during World War II.

His son in California helped fill in the parts of the story that the official record obscures. Despite Tanimoto’s heroics on the battlefield — which included a Silver Star commendation — his wife and brothers were interned during World War II.

While his father was fighting for his country, that country was imprisoning his loved ones, Herb Tanimoto explained by phone.

“My dad actually joined the Army … some months before Pearl Harbor. My parents got married before the war. My mom got sent to camp — Tule Lake originally. My dad got sent off to war,” Tanimoto said. “He never really talked about the war to his kids. … It was something he kept to himself.”

That included the emotional toll of seeing his wife interned, Tanimoto said, and the strain it likely created among siblings. Shigeo Tanimoto’s brothers were “No-No Boys,” his son said. Like many Japanese American men at the time, they refused to declare loyalty to the United States and serve in the military.

“I never got a sense of what my uncles’ felt about what my dad was doing, or what my dad thought about what my uncles were doing,” Tanimoto said. “Basically, like many Japanese fathers, he never really talked about the war to his kids. It was something he kind of kept to himself. That was my great regret, is that I never really asked him questions to dig into what exactly he did, and what exactly happened during the war. That was just the way we grew up. He didn’t really talk about it.”

According to Tanimoto, he’s not sure how a message from his father ended up in a Tacoma coin shop. He speculated that it was most likely a result of the ship he traveled on to get home after World War II, which docked in the Port of Tacoma, but also acknowledged that not really knowing is part of the intrigue. Perhaps he gave it to one of his military buddies before docking and heading home to California, and eventually it ended up in someone’s personal collection. Or maybe there’s another explanation.

Mostly, the discovery provided Tanimoto with an opportunity to reflect on his father’s life — during the war and after it was over. His dad was a peach farmer, Tanimoto explained, who came home from battle to reunite with his interned wife and start a life. When he passed away in 2011, at 94, the local paper honored him as a war hero, an avid fisherman and a devoted father.

Richardson said he will soon send the banknote to Tanimoto in California, where it belongs.

“I feel like it’s a message … to his children,” Richardson said.

While he’s seen pictures, Tanimoto can’t wait to see the banknote in person.

“I’m just amazed (Richardson) was able to locate me,” Tanimoto said. “It’s too bad dad isn’t around to tell me what its significance is, and who he wrote it for. That will probably have to remain a mystery.”