World Coins: Your Newest Acquisition!

Nice Gold coin and a good Dose of history 1966:thumb:!!!
I have seen by reading a 1909 just in a graded MS-67 Pcgs Secure + auctioned at the Fun Show in January 2013.it sold for 30k.
so a high graded one must be semi rare??

 

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I do not have one but It Pleases Me.

Best Regards, :hail:

George

 

A cool new three. Note the die crack from the wing tip to engraver progression on these three 1940 20 centavos.

 

Is that an Alan Berman issue?

 

93 down, 3 to go to complete my type set.
Just picked up this beautiful 20 Centavos. My 2010 version of World coins list this as $10 in XF and $80 in Unc. No pricing information for AU. I'm guessing XF. What are your thoughts, XF or AU?
Awesome toning with a lot of luster showing. Wish I could get a better pic, the coin just glows. Very light wear on the obverse with a little more showing on the reverse.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...Z2bNoHVJ3mCRKp7YA&sig2=i2c5Jq6LHEibtyqc_nGr8A

 

Unpacked my macro lens for some glamor shots of these two raw newps with a touch of color.

 

This is a Venezuelan 20 Bolivares coin that I got at work. It is silver as in the middle picture, not gold as it appears to be in the first and third pictures. A lady had a handful of change and she was trying to pay for something with it. I told her that we couldn't accept it but that I would buy it for a quarter, which she accepted. Does anybody have any idea what it would be worth at face value in American dollars?

 

Unfortunately, the metal in your coin is worth more than the face value-- the currency was changed so that 1000 old bolivares (pre-2008) = 1 bolivar fuerte. So your coin is theoretically worth 1/50 of a current bolivar fuerte, or somewhere around 1/3 of a cent.

 

I picked up this Japanese gold "mini koban" at a show today. It is the last type of koban gold issued by the Shogunate before the 1868 Meiji Restoration. It contains severely debased gold because foreigners who had flocked to Japan after it was opened by Commodore Perry in 1854 were taking advantage of Japan's naivete when it came to the value of gold on the world market (silver was given a higher value in relation to gold in Japan (around 3:1) than it was in the Western world (16:1)). Interestingly, the toning of this coin (because it contains nearly 50% silver) makes it less salable in Japan.

By the way, the reverse side of the coin bears the mintmaster's initials, in Japanese letters, "Ta Ki" 　(た　き)

 

This isn't exactly "new" (got it a couple months ago), but I just implemented the first part of Robec's imaging technique (using cooler light than before). Top two are cropped and brightness/contrast processed to be closer to what I see.


These two are cropped/unprocessed (5000K CFLs, 1200 lumens, no CRI rating, 100 ISO, spot-metering; I didn't pay attention to the aperture rating):



Background is actually a light green post-it note, so the spot-metering really over-exposed things. Anyway, the chunk taken out of the edge of the coin looks like someone clipped a piece off. Any reasoning behind why they'd do that?

 

that is so cool. are these like $2,000-4,000 ???

 

Nice pick up. I have a few questions that may be interesting for others too learn about too, especially if they haven't seen many of these before.

What are the dimensions of the "mini koban" you got? There are so many size varieties of the koban it's hard to imagine from just an isolated picture what you mean by "mini". Another aspect of their scale is how thin these coins can be, even at larger sizes. I am often shocked how thin these were made, particularly when they are as big as one's hand in size, yet function as currency. I don't exactly know how they were carried or transported around, but I imagine their form followed a different mode of handling than did/co coins of the Western world.

Also, do you know about the denomination, since large and small, they are also referred to as koban. I don't know if there's some way to make an equivalent to other denominations of the period, or if you can translate it into today's modern yen or dollar terms and value. That is, not it's numismatic value, but what it would be equal to in today's currency units. mini koban = 千円　or mini koban = $10 or something like that?

Lastly, I noticed the "toned" areas all fall within certain design devices and having seen koban with the elegant ink writing on them, is it possible the coin's metal was reactive to ink that may have been applied to these regions and since then been cleaned and removed, or even worn away, exposing the changed metal surface from years of contact with ink. If indeed the coin ever had ink applied and removed, I would imagine it would harm the value, more so than if it was just cleaned improperly.

Any thoughts on these aspects. Thanks!

 

The mini koban coin was made from 1860 to 1867. Its dimensions are approximately 36mm in long diameter, and 20mm in short diameter, and it is somewhat thinner than a dime. It weighs 3.3 grams, but it is only 57.4% gold, with the remaining 42.6% being silver. Thus, the actual gold weight is 1.89 grams. For comparison, the koban that was minted in 1859 was 55mm X 30mm, and it weighed 8.97 grams with approximately the same gold/silver ratio.

At any rate, the koban had a value of one ryo, which was considered at one time to be lot of money. I have heard that one ryo at one time was the equivalent of roughly $1000 today, but given the debasement that happened to Japan's old currency, particularly in the last 15 years or so of the Shogunate (called Bakufu or Edo-jidai in Japan), I imagine its buying power had seriously diminished by the time the last of these coins were made. When the old system of mon, shu, bu and ryo was replaced with the sen and yen beginning in 1870, the old debased ryo was given a value of one gold yen (which had the same specifications as the US gold dollar at the time), even though the old ryo contained a bit more gold.

 

Thank you! Very helpful and illustrative information. I've heard the rectangular type Japanese coins referred to as ryo, but didn't know that was also applied to ovoid/oval koban as well. Thanks again.

 

I have seen the same coin in a similar condition, but without the toning, offered for $1200 by a dealer who specializes in Japanese coins.

 

They are not foreign for me...but in US they are

Very common coins, but in high grade, at a cheap price...€ 0.25 each :thumb:

5 lire and 10 lire 1990



20 lire 1989



petronius

 

Another coin purchased at € 0.25...I like this :smile

Eritrea, 25 cents 1997





petronius :smile

 

Picked up a new nicely toned 1 Franc from the last year of silver issues in France.