It was about 5 years ago when I made this post. I'll include the link but not the actual post; it was a bit long. Here's the opening paragraph: "From 1933 through 1945 Japan issued coins for their occupation of China. I stumbled across this while looking for my worldwide birthyear coins (1941). It caught my fancy and was not a particularly large group; about 70 mostly inexpensive coins (if you stay away from UNC). They were struck in copper, CuNi, Bronze, Aluminum and Fiber. A question about the fiber coins later. So I started collecting them." But if you want to see images here's where: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-side-collection-china-under-japanese-occupation.298271/ Why repeat this? I just picked up an upgrade to one of the coins, the 1945 Fiber 5 Fen. It was almost the end of the war and the Japanese were running short on metal, so they started striking coins in fiber (think a cardboard-like material). 16.2 mm and .66 grams They'd probably blow away in a stiff breeze. Krause lists the fiber coins in both red and brown, but the thinking now is that the brown ones were just toned red ones. According to Krause there would be 67 coins in a full set. I've got 62 (about 92% of the set). Not surprisingly the ones I don't have are more expensive running in the $50 to $800 range. So now I'm restarting the hunt for the 5 coins I'm missing.
I was lazily browsing eBay one night and came upon a lot of these. From what I remember about 5 1 fen and 4 5 fen coins. The lot was $10 with free shipping so I bought it. They've made very successful numista trades and I've kept one of each to add to my war coinage side collection. Plus I'm a sucker for coins made from non conventional metals.
Interesting stuff. Can you elaborate on what the fiber actually is? I'm intrigued by it. Also the concept of a non-metal "toning". Thanks!
What are the 5 coins that you are missing Kanga? The few tough ones that I can think of are these 1940 Hua Hsing 1 fen 1943 Federal Reserve 5 fen 1943 Federal Reserve 1 fen 1943 Manchukuo 1 jiao (old type) 1933 Manchukuo 1 fen 1939 Manchukuo 1 fen 1933 Manchukuo 5 li 1939 Manchukuo 5 li
Just noticed I made an error about my describing recent pickup. I said: "I just picked up an upgrade to one of the coins, the 1945 Fiber 5 Fen." But obviously from the image it's a 1 Fen. I've got the 1945 5 Fen coming.
The ones I'm missing are the: -- Manchukuo 1933 5 Li -- Manchukuo 1943 1 Chiao (old type) -- Provisional Government 1943 5 Fen -- Reformed Government 1940 1 Fen I've got the 1945 Manchukuo 5 Fen coming, so I'm down to missing only 4. I bought a number of the tougher coins from a seller in South Korea. He's got the Manchukuo 1943 1 Chiao (old type) listed but it's in terrible shape and priced WAY over catalogue (at least compared to what's in my 2020 Krause).
I believe the Krause catalog value for any of them will be irrelevant because they are quite uncommon, the Provisional Government 1943 5 fen and Reformed Government 1940 1 Fen to be to be on the scarcer side. The Manchukuo 1943 1 jiao (old type) is quite rare and is considered to be the key to the entire Manchukuo coins. I own two but got a feeling that one of them is not genuine or both aren't. I'm impressed that you've found Manchukuo 1933 1 fen and 1939 5 li. They are probably slightly easier to obtain compared to the 1933 5 li. These if I recall right were hitting closer to the 200 - 300 dollar mark and this is going back a few years ago. The last two is where I'll call them odd The Reformed Government 1940 1 fen is perhaps one of the key coins to complete the Japanese Puppet coinage. This is the very last coin that I filled and I only obtained mine this year. Price wise, the Reformed Government 1940 1 fen does command serious price however pops up more often compared to the Provisional Government 1943 5 fen. I think I've seen at least 10 different Reformed Government 1940 1 fen Here is one that was sold this year https://www.coinarchives.com/w/lotv...ot=54433&Val=aaa3ac619bd0af0d413a86beda526410 The Provisional Government 1943 5 fen on the other hand is surprisingly a lot harder to find despite what prices suggest. The first time I saw one on offer is surprisingly on eBay. Price was an absurd 2000 USD+ for MS condition. Today this might not reasonable. This price is going back easily a decade ago. I of course didn't buy it and took me more than 5 years before I had to throw a good sum for a cleaned example. Figured if I could buy a clean one and upgrade it along the years. That never happened as a better example never popped up. I probably have only seen 8 different pictures of the 1943 Provisional Government 5 fen, making this perhaps the most difficult coin to obtain out of all these and somewhat underrated value wise.
I received the China-Manchukuo (Japanese Occupation) 1945 5 Fen I needed. This reduces the number of coins I need in the set to 4. You can see from the label that the coin is made from Fiber (which is nothing more than a type of cardboard). WWII was coming to a close and Japan couldn't afford any metal to strike coins for this area.