Anybody CRH in Japan??

[cyberdan]

If I remember correctly 2-3 t-net members live in Japan and I think are on this board.
I just saw this on ebay. Silver 100 yen coins, they said 11 coins = 1 ounce.
That means about $11 for an ounce.

Have you seen these? Do you think they still circulate?

My wife is going to Japan next month and I might have her look. (I might "try" and have her look is more correct. ) She still thinks my hobby is

 

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[Coins4Cheese]

Those 100 yen coins were made from 1957-1967, and are made out of 60% silver if i'm not mistaken. I went to the bank, and guess what? They charged me 200 yen ($2) more for a roll of 100 yen coins. They said that I can get as many as I want, but I have to pay $2 for the lot. I believe that Japan is virgin territory, if only I knew how to harvest it. They also made commemorative 1,000 yen coins for the '64 Olympics. Those were also made out of silver. It would be nice if a teller could hand me one of those, 'eh?

There's also the problem of the lack of human interactions when at the bank. Most of the banks in Japan have ATM's instead of tellers. But some banks have both ATM's and tellers; but the ATM's outnumber the tellers.

As for those 100 coins, I have never seen them in circulation before. Unlike the US, Japan changed the size of a lot of it's coins after WWII. But the coins to look out for in Japan are the 10 yen coins with a reeded edge; those are like the wheaties in America. Also, look for early issue coins.

 

[mts]

Sorry for changing the subject a little but I've got a couple of non-silver 100 yen coins that I picked up in a bag of miscellaneous foreign currency at a coin show. Even though they are not silver they are still worth $1.11 USD as far as I can tell. Many of the coin dealers at these shows had boxes of foreign coins 10 for $1 which would make them 10 cents each if I could find them. Does anyone hunt for these types of coins at shows? It's another type of "coin roll hunting" so to speak. Am I nuts to think that I could make a little spending money (or at least cover my coin show entrance fee) by searching through these bulk foreign coin boxes for 100 yen coins? I also have a couple of Danish 10 Kroner coins which I believe are worth $1.85 USD which I picked up in the same lot. That's 18.5 times what I paid for them.

Do the coin dealers in the US just not care about non-silver foreign coin values or am I mistaken to believe that I could find a steady supply of these coins in dump boxes at shows? Anyone else do this that can give me some insights? I realize that I'm not going to get rich off of this but anytime I can exchange 10 cents for $1.00 I'm thinking that would be a good deal.

Thanks!

 

[cyberdan]

Even though they are not silver they are still worth $1.11 USD as far as I can tell.

True but you can only spend them in Japan. You can convert paper yen back to $$ at banks but they do not want coins.

I realize that I'm not going to get rich off of this but anytime I can exchange 10 cents for $1.00 I'm thinking that would be a good deal.

My wife has a handfull of 100Y coins at about 25¢ each. Just a little something to help pay for the trip. Money goes real fast in Japan.

 

[cyberdan]

I believe that Japan is virgin territory, if only I knew how to harvest it.

Those 100Y look the same size as everyday 100Y If they are the same size. Try going to any one of the 100,000,000,000 coin operated machines. Put in a 1000Y note, then cancel the order. Maybe it will give back 10 100Y coins.

There's also the problem of the lack of human interactions when at the bank. Most of the banks in Japan have ATM's instead of tellers. But some banks have both ATM's and tellers; but the ATM's outnumber the tellers.

Trouble is also so many rules. And we all know how tellers are here. You being a gaijin you could tell the teller you need it as a souvineer for all the kids back home. We both know the importance of bringing a souvineer

 

[mts]

Even though they are not silver they are still worth $1.11 USD as far as I can tell.

True but you can only spend them in Japan. You can convert paper yen back to $$ at banks but they do not want coins.

I realize that I'm not going to get rich off of this but anytime I can exchange 10 cents for $1.00 I'm thinking that would be a good deal.

My wife has a handfull of 100Y coins at about 25¢ each. Just a little something to help pay for the trip. Money goes real fast in Japan.

I can certainly understand the issue of converting coins. Every place that I've called locally has told me that they don't take coins. Which doesn't make sense when you have countries like Canada with $2 coins that are commonplace. Here is a company I found online that not only takes coins, it's their business. I wonder how much their fees are? I would have to imagine that they are higher than dealing with banks. But if you are making 10X to 18X profit there would be plenty of wiggle room for fees. They could charge a 50% handling fee and you'd still make money (albeit not much). I guess the coin dealers realize that there is very little money in such a thing so they just throw them in a bin and cut their losses.

http://foreigncoinandcurrency.com

Anyway, I think that it is fitting to discuss this because it is a form of coin roll hunting to a certain extent. I'm not hunting rolls of coins, just boxes of coins. And it sure seems it is much easier than what most of the CRH'ers do here and potentially more profitable. You walk up to a box, sift through it, pull out what you want, pay 1/10th to 1/18th what it is actually worth, and put it in your pocket. No dumping. You only buy what can turn you a profit. If you compare how hard you have to work to make $6 doing this to what a silver hunter has to go through to find one $6 silver half then this is significantly easier from what I can tell. Of course, converting them to cold hard cash is where it gets iffy. And of course, no one gets excited about finding 100 yen or 10 kroners. But we all love the idea of finding silver! So this isn't nearly as glamorous.

I'm not ready to give up on the idea just yet. I think I'll try it again at the next show and see how I fare. I'll report back if I make a big score and can figure out a good way of exchanging them.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[cyberdan]

When you go thru that box remember to look for silver too.

 

[mts]

When you go thru that box remember to look for silver too.

Will do. But I have to assume the coin dealers are smart enough to remember to look for silver. But you never know.

Thanks!