Hello all Hive coin collectors and silver stackers. I just got a new coin in the mail the other day and thought we'd look at it a bit.
This is a 1959 ¥100 coin. If you read my post about the 1964 Olympic ¥100 coin then it might look familiar, as it's a little similar.
To start off, it's 60% silver. The rest is 30% copper and 10% zinc.
Some more stats to give you some ideas.
- Weight: 4.8g / .15oz
- diameter: 22.6mm
- thickness: 1.7mm
- edge: reeded
I looked through my drawers and was able to find a US quarter. Here it is laying on top. You can see it's just slightly smaller than the quarter.
And about the same thickness:
The front:
The front design features some rice ready for harvest. Above that it says Nihon koku, "Japan", and below it says Hyaku En, "100 yen".
They changed to this design in 1959 and stuck with it until 1966 when they both removed the silver content and changed to a picture of cherry blossoms. According to the Japanese wikipedia page, this design was chosen by the public.
The back:
The back side features a big 100 in the center. Above it says Shōwa which is the name of the Era and the name we usually use when referring to Emperor Hirohito these days. Below that it says sanjuuyon nen, "Year 34". Shōwa 34 is how we write 1959 in the Japanese system.
This back is nearly the same as the current ¥100 coin, but the current one uses a different font and is more plain. For the back side, I definitely prefer this 1959 design.
1959 design on the left, modern design on the right
The guy I bought this from claims it is in XF condition. I don't think this is XF. But I'm far from an expert coin collector, so I don't know. It's not too bad, though, so I'm not unhappy.
It has a melt value of $2.35 at current silver prices. Silveragecoins.com gives it an XF price of $3.20. NGC has it at an even $5 for XF, so a bit more.
Overall not the best coin to get for silver, but for the historic value it's cool to have. And, hey, there is a little silver in it, so that's a bonus too!
There is one more ¥100 coin in the series that I'm going to try to get, then I'll make a short video comparing them all and showing them off in video form. Well, there are many commemorative ¥100 coins, but I'm ignoring those for now. The last I'm trying to get is the 1957-58 one which has a much more complex design than this. I'll make a post about that when I get my hands on it.
The ¥100 banknote was still in circulation till 1974 and I understand it was more popular than the coin. By 1974 when the banknote was finally removed from circulation and people were forced to use the coin, all silver was gone from it. I might order the ¥100 banknote too so we can do a proper historic comparison in a video. I know that's not silver so maybe this group won't be interested in that idea though.
Anyway, so what do you think? Nice coin or passable? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |