I really like these Japanese annular-coin errors. Wonder what they do with the "holes"? Donut shops can at least sell theirs.
Japanese error coins are actually VERY VERY hard to find, in particular coins struck after 1990s. To illustrate this, Japan mint does have a machine that detects defects and reject them. A video can be seen here - pretty fanciful technology. Apparently it scans about 750 coins per minute. This machine compares freshly struck coins against designed spec. As such, if one such coin is found, it can command serious money. The video supposedly claims that a misholed coin can be found in a coin shop for around 1500 USD. But how about something that's a bit more drastic? http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/03/14/misprinted-1-yen-coin-sells-for-us27500-at-auction/ I think if I have that kind of money... I'll get something more decent. But again, it does reflect on how scarce Japanese error coins are. That said, I do have a rotated error 1 sen coin from Meiji era - still hard to find but possible.
Those errors remind me of some Canadian polar bear ones I've seen. That article with the 27 k bid is absurd. A us cent planchet struck like that goes for 5-10 tops, so indeed Japanese error coins must be rare. I just didn't know they were even collected like here in the US.
I don't know much about the numismatic community in Japan, but I remember reading a news story about some tourist from Japan dropping $20K on a Seattle shoe store for some USED 1970s Nike shoes that they had displayed in their store window just for decoration. The store was going to throw them away. If something is novel, or has a certain vintage "cache" to it, it seems that you can bet that there's someone in Japan who's willing to pay top-dollar for it. And then there's the relative scarcity of these errors, as gxseries mentions. Add to this the "novelty-rarity" aesthetic among some Japanese, and you can get $27K bids.
That makes sense. I also wonder what the numismatic community in Japan is like, and I also wonder about every other country. There's not much written about other collectors. I've heard people in other countries mainly collect their own coins, or that they are more interested in world coins in comparison to US collectors. I've checked ebay and world coin errors,even minor ones, sell for good money. In other words they are not cheap (ie 5-10 dollars) unless they slip by in an auction. I don't see a lot but I'd assume major ones go for big sums, at least the asking prices
Hey, man, you are asking one of my big questions about contemporary World Coins, especially the "less-commonly-collected" types. If there is literature on World Coins or literature concerning the collector community in certain countries, language barriers are involved. Actually, forget about language barriers; sometimes just access is hard. I know there are certainly mountains of literature on Japanese coins/collecting community written in Japanese, but getting access even to this literature (which I cannot read!) is even hard. One would almost have to travel to those countries to get a hold of them. These are materials that seem to be in print format (mostly), and are not sold online. If they are sold online, often you would need a credit card drawn from a "local" bank to pay for these items. Then there are the online numismatic "clubs" and blog posts, which are a wealth of information about numismatic communities. Some of these require signing up with foreign web-portals that require "National Identification Numbers," or other types of local identification requirements which foreigners, like me, of course do not have! All of this is just from my own experience in exploring South Korean numismatic literature. The internet has NOT changed everything! Access is still often denied.
mlov - what is your experience in seeing South Korean error coins? The only time I remember seeing one is a UNC 5 won coin struck off center as well as having a clip. Seller was asking for 2000+ USD which may have seem a lot but now that I've been collecting for a while, it seemed to be a unique example.
I think I remember the very coin you speak of! Yeah, errors in South Korean coins don't seem to be easily found, but are certainly more common than Japanese contemporary coins. I do see rotated dies as the most common, and then die cracks as the next most common. You can find these at Korean online retailers and at B&M shops in Seoul I've seen doubling on a 1970 Silver 1K Won commemorative that once sold at eBay. However, that series of coins were minted by either the Karlsruhe Mint in Germany or at the Gori&Zucchi Mint in Arezzo, Italy under Italcambio's auspices. Not in Korea.
Here's some Japanese error coins from my collection I guess the easiest error coins to find is rotation error. That said, I did went through at least a few hundred coins to find them. Sheer perseveration...
