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Message:: [QUOTE="Collector1966, post: 564276, member: 17919"]Truly rare coins from developed countries almost always sell for more in their home countries than in other countries. I  could easily sell a nice 1909-S Lincoln cent in the US for a decent price, but the same coin in Japan might take months to sell. Not all Japanese coins are sharing in the "significantly higher" rally. Common silver one-yen coins that cost me 4500 yen in 1991 are now selling for 2500 yen or even 2000 yen each now. Tokyo Olympics 1000 yen coins were commanding 10,000 yen 20 years ago. Today, you can go to a coin show and pick yourself out 3 or 4 beauties for the same price. Japanese junk silver (100-yen coins) are only selling for 30% over face. You can buy mini bags of Meiji era coppers for 100 yen per coin or less. Wartime coins go for about 10 yen each in lots of 100. Tokugawa-era 1-mon and 4-mon coins go for about 100 yen each, the same price they were in 1987. Another thing to take into account is, Japanese grading is usually (but not always) stricter than American grading, being based more on the British system. A coin that would be considered AU-Unc in the US is often offered as an EF. Coins that would go VF in the US are often sold as F. So a Japanese coin offered as an EF is often actually a better grade than an American EF, and is priced accordingly.[/QUOTE]