Dies anyone know Japanese coins?

[Deleted User]

Can you please tell me if these coins have any value please?

1984worldcoins

Yes, modern Japan coins, very low value.

Sapyx

The coins depicting the Imperial Chrysanthemum and don;t bear any Western numerals - the two round ones, and the two that are to the right of those two round ones - are WWII-era or earlier. The other three are post-WWII, of the kind you might find in change in Japan today, except these all date from the time period immediately after the post-WWII reconstruction. Your oldest coin is the holed one in the bottom row, it's a 10 sen from Year Showa 2 (AD 1927).

The one at top right is perhaps the most interesting: 1 yen, Year Showa 32 (AD 1957). These coins are common enough in low grade, but can get expensive in high grade, because Japan never made year sets of uncirculated coins. Yours looks to be in very nice condition.

[Deleted User]

@Sapyx
I believe they are at least AU and possibly uncirculated.
I want to sell or trade them and give a fair and accurate price.
I appreciate your information. It is impossible for me to determine value because they are difficult to research.
If you know and it's not to much trouble could you please tell me the groups value. I don't believe I can list them for sale or trade without a value.
You can PM me if you prefer.

Sapyx

My best guess at reasonable prices - what I would pay, if I were buying them individually from a fellow collector:

1. 10 yen, Year Showa 27 (1952) (the big bronze one on the left). It's really hard to give a proper value on this one without seeing it in hand; this coin catalogues at 30 cents in EF, and $30 in Unc, for the same reason I noted above - truly Unc examples are virtually non-existent. There's a couple of green spots I'd want to hit with acetone, to see if it comes off or if it's just corrosion. If corroded, then it's basically face value only (10 cents).
2. 10 sen, Showa year 19 (1944) (the holed one in top row). It's made of a cheap and nasty tin-zinc alloy, which corrodes easily. It's in nice enough condition, but it's only worth a dollar in Unc, so maybe 50 cents?
3. 5 sen, Showa 16 (1941) (the small aluminium one to the right of Number 2). It has two varieties: "heavy" (1.2 grams) and "light" (1.0 gram). The "heavy" variety is by far the most common, just 20 cents in that condition. The "light" variety is scarcer, a $5 coin. I'll assume yours is the common one, unless told otherwise.
4. 1 yen, Showa 32 (1957), hard to value as noted in my previous post. Let''s put it middle-of-the-road at $5 maybe?
5. 1 yen, Showa 30 (1955), (same type as no. 4, but a different date). This one's beat-up, so 10 cents at most.
6. 10 sen, Showa 2 (1927), maybe a dollar in that condition.
7. 10 sen, Showa 17 (1942), nice condition but a very common war souvenir, let's say 50 cents.

So selling as a group without further investigation, maybe 6 or 7 dollars? Most of your value is in that near-Unc 1 yen, unless you happen to have the "light" 5 sen, or your 10 yen cleans up nicer than expected in acetone.

SYRACUSIAN

I think that Sapyx meant Showa (1926-80) and not Meiji (1867-1912), otherwise it’s an interesting Japanese starter group.

Sapyx

D'oh! Yes, I'll edit my posts to correct. Thanks, Syracusian.

291fifth

Unfortunately, the costs related to selling those are likely to be more than the price realized. Very low value foreign coins are mostly "service charge" price at retail and have little wholesale value.

Stork

@Sapyx said it. Now, those little aluminum and tin coins in truly gem condition are fabulous and some weirdos (ahem, I'm looking in the mirror actually) will pay up some. Getting war/post-war era tin and aluminum in gem or close to gem condition is not easy despite the really low catalog values. Same with the first couple years of the Showa 1 yen. And that bronze 10 yen is also a desirable year, but unless it's an UNC and preferably with some red involved, it's not that much. Acetone might benefit that one and if it's AU or close you might get a bit for it. Someone looking for a good album coin or nice one for type, but it'd still be under $10 (or even $5).

If you decide to get into Japanese coins for real there are a few good books. The first is the JNDA catalog--it doesn't change much every year so any year is fine. It's almost exclusively in Japanese. Now there is an English language catalog called the Standard Catalog of Japanese Coins ( @SYRACUSIAN you should get this!) that has lovely information that took me way too much effort over the years to parse out with translations. That book has a few minor editing errors though and the modern/circulating stuff doesn't break it out by year or give values.

In any case that is a nice 'type lot' for someone but no super treasures. The 10 yen is the most interesting value wise, barring the 5 sen isn't the scarcer weight (get a scale that goes out a couple decimal places).

The tin is actually in decent condition and is part of the interesting progression in metals (and even ultimately to clay) as metals were diverted to military usage. Finding a real gem of those is an exercise in futility yet no one updates price guides and Japanese dealers (as far as I know) don't bother with them as they are so low value, and maybe not a popular era.

I suspect that is a self fulfilling situation. Low value in catalog leads to little interest from collectors/dealers, leads to few being saved/preserved, which leads to few being collected, leads to low value in the catalog. Which leads to me being frustrated because I want a good one but no one has any because no one wants any.

In any case, those are decent for a person looking for a few type pieces perhaps, but no big values.