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Japan 10 Yen Error Coin? or Post-Mint Damage?
tychojoe
Posts: 1,335 ✭✭✭
Two years ago on a trip to Japan, I roll-searched bunches of 10 Yen bronze coins I got from cashiers and bank clerks just to see how much of a date run I could put together. Fun, but half the dates from the 60's were absent, and of course, no reeded edges from the 50's.
So yesterday, I had a chance at a Seoul B&M to fill in a couple more of the hard-to-find years. The dealer had a tin box full of 10 Yen coppers, the reeded edge and early plain edge years sorted into baggies, and all the later years mixed in loose. From the time before when I got a coin of the only year that I knew I needed, the Year 33 reeded edge, I saw that the tin box had come from a collector, whose original tally of counts by year was still in the box. Yesterday, I located the baggie for one of the other years I needed, Year 40 (1965) of Hirohito (Showa Era), and carefully slid the coins out. Not very many, about a dozen of this year. Here was one. Maybe it would look good enough front and back to add to the date run in my album. Imagine my amazement when I turned the reverse over and found that the obverse was blank!
•••Footnotes•••
• In the 1st picture above, the character "+" means "10", while the middle character means "4", thus 4x10 = 40. The 40th year of Hirohito's reign was 1965.
• The 3rd picture shows a little color in the planchet tilted a small angle.
• The 10 Yen design began in 1951, and it remains unchanged to this day.
• "The obverse side features the Phoenix Hall of Byodo-in Temple in Uji City in Kyoto Prefecture, which was named [on the] UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994 as part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. Fujiwara no Yorimichi (992-1074) built the temple to reproduce heaven on earth. The hall houses a statue of Amida Buddha and its walls depict Amida Buddha coming to this world to save people. The reverse side features the leaves of an evergreen tree, [the bay laurel]. Japan Mint, Circulating Coin Designs
• So the reverse design uses a wreath of bay laurel leaves. I'm curious if the average Japanese citizen attaches any meaning to it. In the entry copied below from Wapedia, Bay Laurel entry, I would guess that the Chinese fable is responsible for the Japanese use of the leaf design. According to the story, since the "laurel regenerated immediately when cut, it could never be felled." That corresponds with the Amida Buddha symbolism of the Phoenix Hall design on the obverse of the coin. It seems that in both Christianity and Buddhism, the bay laurel is associated with heaven.
• "The oval containing George Washington [on the U.S. dollar bill] is propped up by bunches of Bay Laurel leaves, [which are also used all around the obverse border elements of the bill]." Wapedia again, US Dollar Bill entry
• "Bay Laurel - Uses and Symbolism"
"Bay Laurel is the source of the bay leaves, which are used for their flavour in cooking. It was also the source of the laurel wreath of ancient Greece, Turkey (Anatolia), and therefore the expression of "resting on one's laurels". A wreath of bay laurels was given as the prize at the Pythian Games because the games were in honor of Apollo, and the laurel was one of his symbols ever since his unsuccessful pursuit of Daphne. In the Bible, the sweet-bay is often an emblem of prosperity and fame. In Christianity, it symbolizes the Resurrection of Christ and the triumph of Humanity thereby. It is also the source of the word baccalaureate (laurel berry), and of poet laureate.
In Chinese folklore, there is a great laurel tree on the moon, and the Chinese name for the laurel, [...], literally translates to "moon-laurel". This is the subject of a story of Wu Gang, a man who aspired to immortality and neglected his work. When the deities discovered this, they sentenced Wu Gang to fell the laurel tree, whereupon he could join the ranks of the deities; however, since the laurel regenerated immediately when cut, it could never be felled. The [Chinese phrase "Wu Gang chops the tree"] is sometimes used to refer to endless toil, analogous to mythology."
• Ah, all the places you can go, thanks to a little coin, even one missing half its strike!
So yesterday, I had a chance at a Seoul B&M to fill in a couple more of the hard-to-find years. The dealer had a tin box full of 10 Yen coppers, the reeded edge and early plain edge years sorted into baggies, and all the later years mixed in loose. From the time before when I got a coin of the only year that I knew I needed, the Year 33 reeded edge, I saw that the tin box had come from a collector, whose original tally of counts by year was still in the box. Yesterday, I located the baggie for one of the other years I needed, Year 40 (1965) of Hirohito (Showa Era), and carefully slid the coins out. Not very many, about a dozen of this year. Here was one. Maybe it would look good enough front and back to add to the date run in my album. Imagine my amazement when I turned the reverse over and found that the obverse was blank!
•••Footnotes•••
• In the 1st picture above, the character "+" means "10", while the middle character means "4", thus 4x10 = 40. The 40th year of Hirohito's reign was 1965.
• The 3rd picture shows a little color in the planchet tilted a small angle.
• The 10 Yen design began in 1951, and it remains unchanged to this day.
• "The obverse side features the Phoenix Hall of Byodo-in Temple in Uji City in Kyoto Prefecture, which was named [on the] UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994 as part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. Fujiwara no Yorimichi (992-1074) built the temple to reproduce heaven on earth. The hall houses a statue of Amida Buddha and its walls depict Amida Buddha coming to this world to save people. The reverse side features the leaves of an evergreen tree, [the bay laurel]. Japan Mint, Circulating Coin Designs
• So the reverse design uses a wreath of bay laurel leaves. I'm curious if the average Japanese citizen attaches any meaning to it. In the entry copied below from Wapedia, Bay Laurel entry, I would guess that the Chinese fable is responsible for the Japanese use of the leaf design. According to the story, since the "laurel regenerated immediately when cut, it could never be felled." That corresponds with the Amida Buddha symbolism of the Phoenix Hall design on the obverse of the coin. It seems that in both Christianity and Buddhism, the bay laurel is associated with heaven.
• "The oval containing George Washington [on the U.S. dollar bill] is propped up by bunches of Bay Laurel leaves, [which are also used all around the obverse border elements of the bill]." Wapedia again, US Dollar Bill entry
• "Bay Laurel - Uses and Symbolism"
"Bay Laurel is the source of the bay leaves, which are used for their flavour in cooking. It was also the source of the laurel wreath of ancient Greece, Turkey (Anatolia), and therefore the expression of "resting on one's laurels". A wreath of bay laurels was given as the prize at the Pythian Games because the games were in honor of Apollo, and the laurel was one of his symbols ever since his unsuccessful pursuit of Daphne. In the Bible, the sweet-bay is often an emblem of prosperity and fame. In Christianity, it symbolizes the Resurrection of Christ and the triumph of Humanity thereby. It is also the source of the word baccalaureate (laurel berry), and of poet laureate.
In Chinese folklore, there is a great laurel tree on the moon, and the Chinese name for the laurel, [...], literally translates to "moon-laurel". This is the subject of a story of Wu Gang, a man who aspired to immortality and neglected his work. When the deities discovered this, they sentenced Wu Gang to fell the laurel tree, whereupon he could join the ranks of the deities; however, since the laurel regenerated immediately when cut, it could never be felled. The [Chinese phrase "Wu Gang chops the tree"] is sometimes used to refer to endless toil, analogous to mythology."
• Ah, all the places you can go, thanks to a little coin, even one missing half its strike!
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Comments
Can you imagine if that was a US coin?
I wonder what it's worth?
is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
Cathy
And Sumnon, do you mean could the die have been sanded down and polished smooth? That'd be cool!
Seriously, though, I'm glad Sumnom asked,
<< <i>How could this kind of error occur? Are you sure it's "unstruck?" Could it have been sanded down and polished? >>
Actually Sumnon, I should have considered those questions. How it could've happened did nag at me. I'm changing the title to reflect the uncertainty.
When I first saw it, the edge looked just perfectly square, like it came straight out of the press. A normal 10 Yen coin also has a squared edge. That, and its smoothness on the blank side are the reasons I allowed myself to jump to "unstruck obverse planchet!"
And I was too excited to think through how this kind of error could have occurred, or maybe I should say, how unlikely it is to occur.
But overnight as the excitement wore off, I too began to wonder if sanding and polishing is a better explanation. So when I saw your post, I appreciated the questions.
One of the error experts, like Mr. Weinberg on the US Coin Forum, could probably tell us the likely answer! Do you know?
Now I realize I simply need to weigh it and see if it's still 4.5 grams, the weight for standard 10 Yen coins.
At the moment, the best I can do is the homemade teeter-totter: a ruler balanced on the handle of a screwdriver with a triangular grip. The smooth-side coin placed on one end of the ruler, a regular 10 yen placed an equal distance on the other end, and...
...the end with the regular coin does tilt downwards ever so slightly. But not enough to seem conclusive. How much mass should I expect to have been lost due to sanding & polishing that obliterates the obverse?
On to speculating in relative ignorance:
1st off, we know that the Japan Mint does upset the edges of their coins.
2nd, this coin is thinner than a normal 10 Yen coin. It's about 3/4 the normal thickness.
3rd: side by side, the smooth side looks perfectly flat against the normal coin, all the way around. So with the coins 6-12 inches away from the eye, variance caused by polishing would have to be smaller than 0.1 mm.
To the 1st point, could the reverse die have struck the planchet against a smooth surface, something placed in the chuck in the absence of an obverse die? I wish I had a clue. Could a planchet and a blank have been in the dies together, so that the obverse of the planchet flattened perfectly against the blank?
Note to self: a planchet has upset rims, a blank does not.
If it was common to edge the blank in 1965, and if this obverse is "unstruck", something had to smooth out the upset obverse rim.
But has there ever been a modern coin struck only on one side, which came out perfectly smooth on the other? Would a blank that managed to escape edging, and that also managed to get a strike on one side only, look as standard and good on the struck side as this one?
To the 2nd point, wouldn't we expect an hypothetically partially unstruck blank to be thinner than a fully struck coin? Metal in the struck fields flows inward to the devices and outward to the rims, right? (Remember, on this subject I wish I had a clue.) Does the edge thickness grow upon striking, regardless if a planchet has upset rims or not? Of course, if it was sanded, we'd definitely expect a thinner coin.
On the 3rd point, would it be pretty easy to get a really uniformly smooth surface by polishing? The rim is uniformly flat all the way around on the smooth side, and that flatness seems to be very uniform across it, from rim to rim.
Maybe the reason the previous collector left it mixed in with the regular 10 Yen coins is because he or she knew it couldn't be an error coin.
Well, if it was sanded and polished, or if it's an error, at present I can see nothing definitive for or against either cause. But I still have a pleasing oddity, however it was produced!
All of the above is just inquiry and wondering, for the lack of a set of real scales. Simply weighing it could definitively rule it post-mint damage.
So, where did you buy it? I used to live in Korea and hunt around different coin stores in Seoul.
By the way, I did finally go to Hangangsa at Dongmyo, which you told me and USAROK about a few years ago. Ajeossi drives a hard price there! It seems he's got the biggest hoard of BU's of anyone, like lots of bright, lightly-toned, pretty 100 won coins. I can't buy the lots of 10 in a baggie he prefers to sell, but I've gotten a few items from him during my visits. The path to the back room, through the tall, teetering shelves and piles is quite narrow!
--John
<< <i>I'm going to have to go with PMD also, if the die was missing, the coin wouldn't strike, if there was another stuck to the lower die there would be some features on the coin. >>
Indeed. this is what I was thinking.
<< <i>
<< <i>I'm going to have to go with PMD also, if the die was missing, the coin wouldn't strike, if there was another stuck to the lower die there would be some features on the coin. >>
Indeed. this is what I was thinking. >>
Thanks, guys, for the responses! But what if a second coin wasn't stuck to the lower die, but two planchets entered at the same time, stacked, and were struck at once?
I guess I just have a cool-looking polished coin. I'll get it weighed -- I expect it to come under 4.5g.
<< <i>Hangangsa...prices >>
Yes, he's definitely fair -- priced competitively with dealers who have similar inventory. I did find what I wanted, too. Except that I wanted to buy one each of a bunch of the years I don't have in BU, and I couldn't get much of a lot price discount!