What Is The Problem With This Japan Yen?

Once again I agree with swamperbob. The first thing I looked at was the edge reeding. There's not much obvious that I can see to suggest a counterfeit; maybe people on ebay thought the coin was far too nice to be real (that was my first thought). You might have gotten yourself a bargain.

ywan - There is another thread or two that explains the BAD reeded edges, but I don't know how to find them so it may be quicker to explain.

The counterfeit cast coins are often reeded by forcing a stack of coins through a tapered die with groves cut in it. These groves are transferred to the coin.

The process DRAGS metal along as it makes the grove and there is a fold at the top of the REED caused by the metal being pushed up into a ridge. Here is a sletch showing the tell-tale signs of the forgery. The process also causes hollow split ends on the edge that comes out of the die last. These split ends are often ground off leaving a rounded edge that does not belong. So look for a combination of these problems.



Image Insert:



Image: REEDSringapplied.jpg
50.71 KB

Thanks swamperbob for the explanation on reeded edge!

gxseries, thanks for sharing the coin die information - amazing.