Japan 1894 1 Yen die? Genuine or fake?

gxseries

Hi! This is my first time posting and I just came around to see if anyone knows about this die, or rather an expert in dies. I have originally posted this in coinpeople.com, so if you have seen this before, pardon me.

Attached link

Here is all the description of what I tried to compare with, so please kindly take a look.

Tell me what you think later.

coinkat

First of all, welcome and I hope you will continue to post often.

I am not an expert on Japanese coins, but others here are and hopefully they will respond as time permits.

I am not in a position to offer an opinion as to whether these dies are authentc or not. It would seem that more than one die series would be needed, but any dies used in 1894 would have been compromised to prevent counterfeiting with fatigued dies... I just don't know... excellent question and I anticipate that the dies will need a closer examination to make a final determination.

gxseries

1894 is the year where 1yen silver coin is made the most often (if I am not wrong), so you should be able to find Meiji 27 silver 1 yen coins pretty easily. But by this, I assume that there has to be several set of dies used in the production. I can't remember the exact mintage number (maybe someone with krause in hand can tell me the mintage number that very year?), but most certainly one die is not good enough to do the job.

Assuming that if this is a genuine die, would defacing a die seriously thought of? I mean, usually a mint would try to keep their dies the best condition to be, so I simply cannot assume why a die has to be defaced. This is more than a 100 years ago story, so we never get to know what mints did with dies at that time. Of course, nowadays, dies have to be defaced for various security reasons. If this die happens to be a fake one, this whole story would completely be thrown out of the window.

I guess I am a bit shocked over the details of the die as it looked almost similar to a real genuine coin... the dimension of the die is perfectly the same as the coin, so I have no more idea of how you can possibly verify this die...

MadMarty

No matter what that is WAY COOL!!!

Welcome!!

spoon

My Krause shows 22.118 Million as the mintage for 1894.

I think the best way to verify the authenticity of the die is to find a genuine 1894/Meiji27 1 yen coin that shows that die break across the 900, or at least a part of it.

Maybe you should post a question on a Japanese coin collector forum asking if anyone has ever seen such a coin with that die crack.

wybrit

The other thing that may be useful is to measure the mass of the coin. If it is far off the mass specified in Krause, be suspicious.

gxseries

To find a coin that has exactly the same die crack is almost trying to find an ant in a haystick. I mean, even trying to find a Japanese error coin will prove to be more than difficult! Well, as for the coin, I can always get another sample to compare with, if it happens that the coin that I have at the moment happens to be a fake...

MadMarty

If your selling the die, please PM me!! That is way up there on the Coolness scale!!!

mrearlygold

Way way cool!

gxseries

<< <i>If your selling the die, please PM me!! That is way up there on the Coolness scale!!! >>



I don't think I will sell it any time soon, even though it can possibly be a fake! :

I tried to send an email to the Japanese mint some time ago - I guess I am still waiting for a reply from them.

MadMarty

<< <i>

<< <i>If your selling the die, please PM me!! That is way up there on the Coolness scale!!! >>



I don't think I will sell it any time soon, even though it can possibly be a fake! :

I tried to send an email to the Japanese mint some time ago - I guess I am still waiting for a reply from them. >>



I just really love that design, and would be very cool to have a die (real or fake)...

gxseries

I have seen quite a few of those fake dies before, but not anything this real.

I don't seen them these days, I guess someone must have hoarded them pretty fast...

And you know something is awfully wrong when the genuine coin costed slightly more than what I paid for this die... although this will never ever happen again...

MadMarty

Hey gxseries,

Turn your PM function on!!!

gxseries

Ooops. it should be ok now.

satootoko

There are times when I feel safe in declaring something to be a fake relying solely on a picture, but I would never personally authenticate something I hadn't seen in hand.

That said, if it is a fake, its the best one I've ever seen. The only "discrepancy" apparent in the posted pictures is the calligraphy of the "nen" character ("year"), located at the end of the date and across the dot from "900"; but the one on the die is well within an acceptable range, and the greater wear on the die than on the comparison coin could be making it look more different than it is.

Include me on your PM list when (if) you decide to sell.

gxseries

Most certainly, I can see the discrpency of the word "nen" but I guess because this was done on a scanner, you get to see the "accidental" refraction which you can see on the coin and parts of the die as well. I mean, you can take any Japanese silver 1 yen coin that is minted around that era and you will see what I mean - a scanner does a bit of "odd" refraction. The only major difference that I can spot so far is the scales above the "nen" which on the coin (right after the dots), you see 5 scales or some sort of "hair" from it's arms, but on the die, there is a strong 4 but the last one seems not to be in place or not carved properly. I don't know if this is an "accidental" variety, or just an incomplete die or a fake one.

The die was originally rusty and I wasted more than 100 hrs to restore the best I could (Not recommanded but I didn't do it, the rust will bite), which is the current picture that you are seeing right now. And it is even much odd when the surface of the die still had some macro parallel hairlines polishes... I think I need some manual 6MP+ digital camera to capture such surfaces... it's impossible with my current 4MP digital camera.

I heard that even holding onto a genuine die could mean that as you are holding onto government property, you could be prosecuted for it... well that is for US dies that I heard of. I don't know but anyways, this die is officially 111 years old if it's true!

gxseries

Went to a coin fair today with my laptop and tried to show my pictures of this die. Some dealers were extremely doubtful of where and how I got this die. Appearently it freaked one coin dealer, who was in one of the Australian mint and recognized right away that it is a die. He took his time to compare and he said it would be extremely difficult to counterfeit such a die considering the ridicious tiny details of the coin itself. Least, he said that it is quite an unusual find. I still can remember how he was so happy when I showed him the set of pictures that I had... Quite a nice old gentleman...

Nevertheless, some dealers were on the extreme and said that they were made in China, etc. Hehehe.