I am brand new here, so hello to all. I stumbled upon this site and was hoping that I may tap into a wealth of knowledge. My dad recently brought to my attention that he has some Koban coins and would like to know w bit about them. Maybe a date, a little history and an aprox value. This first one I will post a picture of is what I believe is silver and will post photos of some gold coins in a day to two. Please excuse that these photos were taken with a camera phone. The photos that will be coming of the gold ones will be in great quality.Thank you in advance!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koban_(coin) http://www.amazon.com/Coins-Japan-Wadokaichin-Koban-Japanese/dp/1157317618 all I could find quickly.
Thank you. I have searched a bit but its not easy to find specifics about these coins. The gold ones are in a set and not sure if they belong together or were just put together.
That's a beauty. My Japanese (Kangi?) is non-existent though. Anyone here who can read Japanese and interpret these a bit?
How are they mounted in that frame? I hope they are not damaged on the other side by some sort of glue.
Doesn't look legit. Koban are struck only in gold and never meant to be in silver. As shown, it shows that it's struck in 20g silver but this is never found in any of the kobans. Kobans if genuine are at least 2000USD unless bent or damage which will lower the value. The golden looking kobans that you have there doesn't look like gold to me either.
What gives you the feeling that they are not gold? The first one may or may not be legit but the mounted collection, why would you think they are not gold?
They definitely do not look original. Kobans were hand hammered so they should not look flat. Here are some examples: http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/万延小判-卵型大型-背九き-幅２１ミリ-本物保証-極美品＋-/auction/e105449462 http://page21.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/j113793292 Because they are that scarce, there are a lot of souvenirs based such design like this one: http://page6.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/f95326807 http://page17.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/v184319913 You can post more photos if you like but I'm certain that it's just plated base metals or maybe gold plated silver.
