Is there someplace I can go to get help in identifying what appear to be Japanese gaming or gambling or slot tokens. I have accumulated a mini collection of 24 of them, found among the bulk foreign coins I bought from my local coin dealer. Its amazing what you'll find when purchasing bulk by weight. I usually buy 10 - 20 pounds at a time, then sort them into my foreign coin collection. My best collections (the most different coins, dates, and/or mint marks) are Germany, Great Britain, and Mexico. Anyway, any suggestions as to where I might go to get assistance with Japanese tokens? I posted here a couple of times when I only had a couple of them, but I realize this site is for coins and not tokens, so if there is a similar site that discusses tokens, I'd like to know. Regards, Bill In case anyone is interested, here is a picture of just about all of them. There are still 3 more that aren't pictured though.
Pachinko is a vertical pinball game which has been popular in Japan for more than half a century. Gaily flag-decorated pachinko parlors, each with literally hundreds of machines, are found in virtually every neighborhood. A number of large chains use identical tokens regionally or nationwide, but there are thousands of independent parlors, many of which have their own tokens. I would conservatively guess that there are several thousand different tokens in use, or formerly in use, and although I know of a few small collections, I've never heard of any organized group, forum, or English language catalog. A Japanese numismatist I know isn't aware of any Japanese language catalog either. The object of the game is to cause a small steel ball to enter a hole surrounded by steel pins, and thereby get more balls to flip with the lever. Although gambling is illegal, generally there is a small window on the outside of the building where one can trade the balls for "prizes", and of course there is no way to tell whether you are returning purchased but unused balls, or winnings.
