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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Stork, post: 3608043, member: 71642&quot;]A couple of modestly graded Japanese coins that were actually a bit of a score.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>They were lumped as a lot in a random Heritage weekly world auction with a very low estimate.&nbsp; One was even labeled with the variety, and either could have stood on its own merits.&nbsp; They weren&#039;t quite overlooked as I did pay twice the estimate...but not quite the catalog (JNDA).&nbsp; Either of the coins could have justified the final price.</p><p><br /></p><p>The first is the &#039;long year&#039; variant of the 1873 50 sen.&nbsp; This is a VERY difficult coin to get.&nbsp; My first one was a relatively recent purchase out of a Japanese auction.&nbsp; At the time I felt thrilled to get one in an AU details/environmental damage slab.&nbsp; Never figured to get an MS one.&nbsp; Depending on grade the catalog values are 2.5-10x their &#039;short year&#039; sibling.&nbsp; Even in the lowest grades this has value which is not always true in the Japanese catalog.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Plus the NGC pops are off a bit as I have a normal &#039;short year&#039; version in a 65 slab that is labeled &#039;long&#039;.&nbsp; I&#039;m taking that one back to get the label fixed next show I get to.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>In any case, this one is a modest NGC MS-62.&nbsp; Nothing exciting other than the variety, and much nicer.&nbsp; Super happy to have upgraded this one for a deal.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]966087[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The other one is not labeled as a variety.&nbsp; Now NGC will sometimes designate &#039;stem open&#039; or &#039;closed&#039; (the translation is more &#039;stem cut facing up&#039; though).&nbsp; I&#039;m guessing this one was sent in without a variety request, or they don&#039;t do it for this year.&nbsp; NGC uses Krause which is suboptimal.&nbsp; PCGS would probably have gotten it right. </p><p><br /></p><p>For a handful of years the reverse has &#039;stem cut facing up&#039; or &#039;down&#039; variants.&nbsp; The scarce one in the year varies though.&nbsp; For 1897 the scarcity is &#039;up&#039;.&nbsp; Again, scarce enough that even the uncirculated versions are many multiples of value.&nbsp; 6-40X values.&nbsp; This one is an AU-58, and the reverse is not the best color...but it&#039;s the only one I&#039;ve ever seen.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]966088[/ATTACH] </p><p>Not the most gorgeous coin, but better than what the photo implies.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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