Meiji 3 (1870) 20 sen coin from Japan I bought. Nothing about it looks obviously fake to me, though it has oddly uneven wear on the rim that I'm not sure whether it's a result of the way it was struck or how it was handled. Any thoughts? I didn't pay a lot for it anyway so if it turns out not to be genuine I'm not out much, but would just like to know if anyone thinks there's any obvious problems here (other than it was probably cleaned at some point in its life; that's almost unavoidable with older Japanese coins as until relatively recently many collectors thought nothing about cleaning these. At least it doesn't seem overly harshly cleaned.) The dots that frame the devices on both sides seem slightly uneven too, but maybe that's just due to wear or minor damage. But that's the only other thing that strikes me as a bit unusual. Would appreciate thoughts from people with more expertise in this area though.
Not an obvious fake. I’m sure some experts will chime in soon. Looks mad, misaligned die strike. As @eddiespin says, it looks struck.
Possibly a broken, distorted or dislocated collar allowed the flan to be struck slightly off-center. You didn't include photos of the edges, but I'm assuming the reeding either fades or disappears in the "damaged" chord of the rim?
Don't have the coin in hand yet (borrowing the seller's pictures basically) but that's probably the case. Thanks for the info all.
This btw finishes my last missing Japanese modern denomination (not counting gold or NIFC). Now I just need to fill in some missing types. My goal is within a year or so to to get most or all of the IFC modern types. (Possibly some of the circulating commemoratives too, but those are lower priority.)
Too me it looks like a broken, expanded collar. struck out of collar, yeah, I have no idea on authenticity.
I'm not too worried; counterfeit Japanese coins are rare (though people will fake anything these days) and you'd think people wouldn't go through a lot of effort to make a fake of a coin worth $20 to $30 at most in this condition. I've seen less valuable coins get faked though lol. At any rate I think I'm 99% convinced this particular one is genuine. If it's a fake, it's a very good one. All the design features seem to line up to pictures of known genuine examples. It does seem to have a slightly misaligned die and possibly the collar broke or slipped upon striking, but that's not that unusual, especially when Japan was making its first modern struck coins that started this year (1870). I guess I just wanted a little assurance because honestly this coin seemed a bit too good oddly; almost every coin of this type seems to be in lower condition. It's probably been dipped and or cleaned at some point in its life, but for what I paid for it that's reasonably forgivable. It doesn't seem harshly so at least (although some people's standard for "harshly cleaned" is any coin they can tell is cleaned. To me it means it's cleaned so badly the coin is damaged. YMMV).
1870 is indeed the first year of mass produced coins Japan struck. The equipment was bought off from the closure of Hong Kong mint in 1868 so the Japanese had just one year to experiment with striking coins. As far as I'm concerned, it looks genuine. Photo looks to be too over exposed.
A lot of the early coins have production quality issues. As long as the weight/diameter measure up I would not be overly concerned. Anything could be faked, but this would be an odd choice. edited to add, here is a 1 yen, so a bit different, but you can see the die cracks and rim issues. I have a few more 1870s with 'issues' but will have to pull the photos together later.
Another one, a raw 10 sen that has had a slightly more adventuresome life. But you can see the issues.
