If you have a Japanese 1986 10 yen, make sure you check for this

[gxseries]

This price got me shocked big time. It's a regular Japanese 1986 10 yen coin (worth around 10 US cents) but unless you are a serious collector, a lot would have missed this. In fact, this variety was not in Japanese catalog for a while until very recently.

 

http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k162281872 Asking price is around 1800 USD

http://page6.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/f126699850 Currently going at around 400 USD

 

So what makes this coin rare? Appearently it was decided that a modified design of the temple would be used in 1982. For some reason, it was discovered recently that some coins were accidently muled during late 1981, making them rather scarce. Mintage for this year is 1,369,000,000 followed by a drop in 1982 at 890,000,000. Note that previous years mintage averaged more than 1.2 billion since 1973. (Yes I double checked the figures with Japan mint - http://www.mint.go.jp/eng/coin-eng/eng_number_of_coin_production.html )

 

My 2011 JNDA catalog does not give a breakdown of what the price difference is but you can tell one's worth signifcantly higher than the other. Japanese error coins are not common but they do appear once in a blue moon, available at moon currency.

 

Will try and get around to post the differences - appearently it's quite minimal but obvious.

 

Edit: The year is 1986, not 1981.

[pingu]

Hello,

 

in the picture the differences of the variations.

I have found both variations from 1988 and 1995. Unfortunately, in 1986 is still absent me.

 

searched coins >1000 piece

 

Greetings from Germany
pingu