My sisters and I are in the process of sorting out and doing an inventory of my father's stuff.Thankfully,he's still with us at almost 87 but wants to distribute all of his stored up stuff between us.To my surprise,we found a box of foreign coins and some tokens from all over the world. He was a colonel in the Army and was stationed in Europe and Korea at various times in the 60's and 70's. The only really unusual piece is one of those Columbian coins from 1981 with the lady sitting bound in a chair that we discussed in an earlier thread (top coin).I'm not sure how it ended up in this pile but there it is,probably the only one I'll keep unless one of you can spot something else of interest. What do you think? I hope that if you do the double-click-twice thing,you'll be able to make most of them out.
Dead center in the first picture is the first non-silver Japanese ¥100 (Y#82, cu-ni) minted from 1967-88. On the other side you'll see a two digit number in western numerals. Add 1925 to that number (the Showa date) and you will get the western date - for example if the number is 44, the coin was struck in 1969. Worth a couple of bucks or less. The small aluminum coin at the top center of both pictures is a Japanese ¥1 (Y#74 - 1955-89, Y#95.1 - 1989, Y#95.2, 1990-present). Considering where you got it, I'm sure it's Y#74 which is cataloged at 10¢ Unc except for the 1989, which is listed at 50¢ Unc. in Krause because of its comparatively small mintage - 116,100,000 due to Hirohito's death in January and the re-dating necessitated by Akihito's ascension to the throne. Earlier years had mintages from ~1/2-billion to 1.74-billion. The ones at the bottom left of the ¥100 and at about 7 o'clock in the outer row are both bronze ¥10 coins with their dates under the large 10 on the reverse. The building is a very famous ancient temple. If they have reeded ages they are Y#73 from 1951-58; otherwise they could be Y#73a (1959-89), Y#97.1 (1989), or Y#97.2 (1990-present). The reeded edge coins are quite scarce Unc with values of ~$20-40. With only a couple of exceptions the smooth-edge coins' Unc value is <$1, and without exception both types have little or no numismatic value in circulated grades. The rest of the coins include European, South American, Israeli, and other Asian coins; but I didn't see anything particularly valuable (although I wouldn't rule out the possibility that I missed something).
Thanks Roy! Here are close-ups of all of the Asian coins and closer-ups of the three bronzes,can you tell the dates? None have reeded edges though.They all seem to have different dates.
Gotta look closer at the pictures before IDing them. The one I called ¥100 is actually a Showa 63 (1988) cu-ni ¥500 (Y#87) with an obverse only slightly similar to the one I called it. The dates on the ¥10 coins are Showa 56 (1981) on top, probably Show 54 (1979) on the bottom left and either Showa 61 or 62 (1986 or 1987) on the bottom right. I can't be sure I am seeing the "4" character on the bottom left. If it looks like a box with arcs in the top corners, I've got it right. On the other one, I can't be sure whether the next to last character on the right has one or two horizontal lines. The other two coins are People's Republic of China 1 & 2 fen aluminum coins, The fen is Y#1, issued from 1955-97, but I can't make out the date characters clearly. The larger one is Y#2, 1985. With a face value of about $4.25, the ¥500 is probably the most valuable coin of the bunch. Edited: I didn't notice the closeups of the ¥10 coins originally. Left to right they are Showa 56, 54, and 62.
Thanks again Roy.You didn't miss the closeups,I added them later. I forgot to mention that there were some currency bills from Kenya in addition to the 3 coins..here they are.
