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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The Eidolon, post: 7775056, member: 102103&quot;]Starting to read the characters can have a pretty tough learning curve.</p><p>I already knew Japanese before I started collecting the coins, so I don&#039;t remember what it was like learning to read characters from scratch.&nbsp; I was a dual Japanese/chemistry major.</p><p><br /></p><p>For the non-silver Meiji to Showa coins, there are a lot of bargains to be found, at least where I live.&nbsp; A huge fraction of my collection of prewar coins were picked out of 10 cent bins.&nbsp; (The shop is no longer there, alas.)&nbsp; Here was one day&#039;s haul from about 4 years ago.&nbsp; Some of them were even in pretty good shape.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1333593[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>I used to wonder if the shop owners didn&#039;t read characters well enough to pick out the older coins and sell them separately.&nbsp; I gradually realized that they just put a much a much higher value on their time than some of the other local coin shops.&nbsp; If it&#039;s not silver and didn&#039;t sell for at least a few dollars once packaged, they didn&#039;t seem to view it as worth the time to write up.&nbsp; Anything else, regardless of age and scarcity, went in the junk bins.&nbsp; Bigger stuff for 25 cents and smaller for 10 cents.</p><p><br /></p><p>A lot of stuff in the 25 cent bins wasn&#039;t even that great, like old Chuck-E-Cheese tokens and whatnot.&nbsp; But I&#039;ve found a ton of interesting stuff in their cheap bin over the years.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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