It is super pretty in hand - that golden center isn't a trick of the lighting...nice album toning. Too bad it isn't a better date...
These are not so common as you might think in Unc. The 1974 isn't scarce like some of the other high mintage dates of the 10Y still circulating but these didn't appear in mint sets and not too many were set aside. The $1 price listed in the catalogs is not accurate and the coin brings more in Japan. Gems are strong keepers.
I share your pain, except probably 10-fold over. I owned over 800 of these 10 Yen coins (date range 1940's to current) without knowing a single date. lol I did have some BU like ones but I ended up selling a bunch of yen for pretty much currency rate.
