Ok, so my GF was sorting through some of her jewellery, and I spotted something interesting. I live in Japan and she lives in Texas, but years ago, she taught English at a Japanese private school for 2 years. Her parents visited at one stage, and they were given a "pendant" as a present. Here is the pendant: There's a coin in the pendant. Although it looks attached, it's actually clipped in, so the coin could be removed. It's a Showa year 61 (1986) gold coin, face value of 100,000 yen (about $915 USD). It's 20g, 99.9% gold coin. Current melt value is over $1200, and market value seems to be around $2000+ . (not including the pendant mount and chain) It's been kicking around in her stash for about 20 years!!!!!
@Dnas It's an interesting design, but I'm concerned that the bezel and clips have damaged the coin thereby reducing its value.
I have one of those, I think they were doled out to Japanese citizens by lottery and at face value. My mother-in-law got me one. There is also a 10,000 yen silver coin that came out at the same time. I remember some controversy because, at the time, the face value of the coin was way above the melt value. I think there was a huge cache of counterfeit ones uncovered. Perhaps some members could share more on this.
Interesting history on those. My memory is very fuzzy but at one point there was an outcry that there were a bunch of fakes for the (I think) uncirculated version...and a European dealer was holding a lot of them. Eventually the story suddenly stopped and there was never another peep--circumstantially it seemed as though the fakes concern was not substantiated and there was a settlement. No criminal charges were filed. That said, if anyone can dig up any resolution on this it would be interesting. I may not be remembering the details correctly and it was a long time ago. In any case, this was THE coin that got me started on my Japanese coin collecting. Decades ago (good timing) I wanted a little bullion and to make it interesting a bit from different countries. I saw someone (Satootoko or Roy for those who remember) using this coin as an avatar on another site. It took a few years to finally get one, but eventually I did. But by then I was more interested in numismatic Japanese coins in general (thanks to a Dansco Roy recommended I buy). But this will always be one of my favorites!
Here's my 100,000 and 10,000 yen coins in the original mint packaging Here are a couple of articles about the "incident" https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/20/...n-in-the-case-of-the-chrysanthemum-coins.html https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/0...s-dlrs-2-million-in-coins-back/6619706248000/
Cool! I couldn't get past the paywall for the NYT even with an incognito window, but the second article is the part where it got more interesting. All those coins seized, no official word if they were counterfeit (what is more embarrassing--he got the counterfeit coins in Japan so they were missed there--from one of the big banks I think-- or that they made a mistake in accusing him). I can't remember where I read it, but apparently he stopped talking about it so maybe a settlement and a nondisclosure. I mean, if he didn't end up with criminal charges, it seems interesting. Interesting though he was suing for the face value too. Back then I don't think the gold was worth that much. Sort of like those old 1997 Canadian Mounties that literally had guaranteed for $310 US dollars in 2000. And the price of gold was under that at the time.
Yeah, I managed to work around it and was able to read the NYT article. Apparently Davies got the coins from am Swiss bank who had them from a middle Eastern source. The thought was the coins were from a Japanese source in exchange for oil, and that is why everything got hushed up really fast.
Oh, I need to read that! I'll see if I can try something else as a workaround. My other browser perhaps. For some reason I was thinking he'd picked them up in Japan, and somehow a Japanese bank would have suffered embarrassment. This is even more interesting. edited because I started googling and found the two of us had this conversation in 2016. And I'd linked to that article! Too bad I can't remember the details! https://www.cointalk.com/threads/100-000-yen.278182/
One has to subscribe to Financial Review to read the entire article. When I worked in the City of London I would read articles from the paper. Can Anyone obtain the full article please? I have one of the Showa commemoratives.
Thanks! That is super helpful! I can't help but think either they weren't counterfeits or there is a movie's worth of backstory. The dealer isn't/wasn't (as far as I'm aware) talking about it, nor is he in jail. And remained an active dealer. This little random google was kind of fun. Some foreign correspondent activities including the March 13 with the dealer in question. Sprinkled amongst luncheons with ambassadors, university presidents, authors, etc. https://books.google.com/books?id=Y...age&q=paul davies british coin dealer&f=false
