Watashi no namae Mike Strub. Watashi no kaisha wa Promethium Numismatics – to Ford Motor Company, de gozai mass

(My name is Mike Strub. My company is Promethium Numismatics – and Ford Motor Company, if you please.)

A year ago I had traveled to Paris, France, thinking it might be my last trip abroad. The next scheduled meeting of the international consortium of automotive standards people, with whom I had worked 5 years, occurred in Sweden without me, due to "lack of budget". However, without me my friends lacked a native English speaker and writer – and this they could not do without. So the budget problems were somehow solved. Mike Strub, traveling numismatist, was back in action!

I’ve always liked to travel, because it gives me the opportunity to meet different cultures, an excuse to learn a dab of their languages, and – hopefully – visit their coin shops. When I form a connection with a country – by visiting it, or having a good friend from it – I like to start up a type collection from there!

 I won’t give you a huge history lesson about Japanese Numismatics, just a few brief points. Milled coinage in Japan is a relatively recent phenomenon – dating only to 1870. Before that, there is a multi-hundred-year history of base coins that were cast in bronze (like the 100-mon oval coin at right), and a slightly briefer history of higher value hammered silver and gold amalgam coins were made of rectangles possibly cut from sheets, shown at left.

There are also some high-value coins called Oban or Koban that are hammered oval sheets of gold with small stamped kanji symbols. Some of these also feature black ink kanji markings.

Modern Japanese coins – by which I mean milled coins - are limited in number – a complete type set at this writing consists of 152 coins. To complete the set is probably impossible for a person of my modest means, but for surprisingly little money, probably 90% of the set might be assembled.

Japanese coinage – like Korean – is not as varied as Western European and North American coinage. It includes fewer commemoratives, circulating and non-circulating. If the Japanese mint’s offerings fairly reflect the interests of Japanese collectors, it would seem that the latter are more interested in collecting different varieties of packaging for their sets than in collecting different varieties of coins. For 1995, for example, there are 15 packaging possibilities for the exact same regular issue set – with no commemorative included – unless you count the non-coin medallion in those packages, which unusually, is sometimes made of silver as in this 1993 "Respect for the aged" themed mint set.

With the exception of five 100-yen commemoratives from 1964 through the 1970’s, and the 1964 1000-Yen Olympic commemorative, commemorative coins of Japan didn’t really take off until 1985. Modern circulating commemoratives are only found among the 500-yen denomination. Regular issue coins of the modern (post-WWII) era include also the 1, 5, 10, and 50 Yen denominations.

I count among my good friends Hiroyuki Inagaki, an employee of Mitsubishi Motors, and more importantly to me, a type collector of his country’s coins. At a 2003 Tokyo meeting, I had spoken with Inagaki-san of my interest in coins, and first learned that he shared it. He brought to the meeting a bag of exceptional type coins that he had encountered in circulation in Japan – duplicates – for which he would only accept face value exchange. These were the seeds of my Japanese type set, and in the intervening two years, I’d acquired a total of 58 (38%) – and during this trip I would find 15 more, bringing me to 48% completion. Of the 152, 10 are historic gold coins of the Meiji (1870-1912), Taisho (1912-1926), and early Showa (1926-1931) eras, and 10 are modern gold coins – one of the late Showa (1986) and 9 of the current Heisei (1989-present) era.

Now, two years later, I met Inagaki-san for lunch in Fukuoka, and showed him my entire Japanese type set. As before, he showed me additional duplicates for sale at face value – and I selected 5 500-Yen and one 100-yen commemoratives. Hiroyuki has an eye for quality. The coins he selects from circulation are always high-grade AU coins, and some are indistinguishable from BU quality. I only wished I could offer him reciprocal help with his collection – but he doesn’t collect US coins. I had brought some better date Japanese 50 and 100-yen coins, but he was not interested, as he is not a date coin collector.

Henner Stengel, a German who is my very good friend, was attending the last of these meetings before his retirement, had told me a year ago that he had an extra "introductory bag" of Euros, and that he wanted to give it to me. At this meeting he had remembered to bring it, and simply gave it to me, refusing payment. I don’t know the value of this little bag of 10.23 Euros, sold for their face value of 20 Marks to Germans shortly before the general release of Euros in 2002. But I couldn’t accept this outright gift without reciprocating. Fortunately, I had a 1964 1000 Yen silver coin, which I successfully offered to him as a "souvenir" of his Fukuokan visit.

Henner is no longer an active collector, but he did once collect stamps – exclusively German stamps – he mentioned to me in subsequent conversation. I asked him how complete his collection was – he replied that in terms of pre-world-war-II issues, it had been 100% complete due to an inheritance from his grandfather. Unfortunately, most of this pre-war portion of this collection was baked and charred during a wartime fire. Henner keeps the albums and their charred contents as part of his collection, a poignant remembrance of his grandfather.

  At the conclusion of our conference, our last meeting ended early. I decided to head immediately for the local coin shop. Explaining that he had time to kill before his 7pm flight, and that he might as well accompany me, Hiroyuki and I paid an afternoon visit to Fukuoka Stamp, the finest coin dealer in downtown Fukuoka – and probably the only one. Hiroyuki was a great help in translating the coin dealer’s Japanese for me, although the dealer understood my English very well.

 And I might never have found the shop without his help, either, as you can see from the sign on the street, pictured above.

After climbing the stairs to the second floor, we found a clean, very neat shop.

First we tried to find some non-Japanese foreign coins that I could use. Proprietor Yasuhisa Uno’s – pictured at left behind his display case, with Inagaki-san at right holding his suitcase – had some very nice coins - not damaged or cleaned or low grade coins – but there was nothing I could use.

Uno-san’s stock was kept in an unusual kind of album – thick cardboard pages containing slots that accomodated 2x2’d coins, 12 to a page. I had seen a stock book like this before, when being shown the collection of a friend from the Marysville coin club. This friend had asked me to try to obtain more such albums for him, which I now remembered. But the dealer would not sell this book, explaining that it is out of print and not for sale – and of course he had no others in stock.

Uno-san did have some coins I needed – the exceedingly rare – "unissued" – gold 20 yen coins of 1932 – for 250,000 and 300,000 Yen. I took his picture holding one of these coins in his right hand and an oval gold coin from 300 or so years ago, I believe called a Koban, in his left.

For 1000 Yen (about $9.50), Uno-san helped me select a very large oval cast coin of the 100 mon denomination dating back approximately 300 years. I also selected two 1-Mon coins that he says are between two and four hundred years old, for 100 Yen apiece. One has the character "Mon" on the reverse, one has no character on the reverse. In a bag of silver coins for 200 Yen each, I found a 1937-M Philipines 10 centavo coin. A nice 1993 Japanese mint set – pictured at the beginning of this article – the one with a silver token commemorating "respect for old people" - was 2000 Yen, and a fantastic redbook-like book for Japanese coins and banknotes – with profuse color illustrations and a fold-out poster in back featuring pictures of all government-issued set packagings and a lot of paper money was 1500 Yen. I also found a couple of later-date type coins from his stock for 100 Yen apiece.

Because the 5 Yen coins, called Go-en, are so attractive in uncirculated, I attempted to buy a roll, but Uno-san told me that this – collecting and dealing in BU rolls - is not done in Japan – I wonder if he truly speaks for the entire Japanese coin hobby? He did sell me a roll of mixed circ and unc Go-ens for face value – these come 50 to a roll. The stiff clear plastic in which the go-ens were rolled featured an interesting marginal note – explaining that ALL Japanese coins, when in rolls, are rolled 50 coins to a roll – be they 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, or 500 Yen.

I then showed Yasuhisa my Japanese coin collection. He kindly complimented me on doing a good job assembling the type set, after he realized that he could hardly improve upon it. That is, unless I cared to make him "very happy" by buying one of his gold pieces. Before I left with my assembled my purchases, he discovered a coin that was not already in my type set – Y-43, Taisho 9 (1920) 5 Sen. Though he had priced it at 2000 Yen (Krause catalog is $12), he gave it to me without charge.

The next morning, with a day free of meetings, I asked the assistance of the bellman, who took my request to a group of 3 ladies who began an internet search – something I couldn’t do in Japanese. "I think you have been to the best coin shop in Fukuoka," they told me, "but there is one more – it is very far away – do you have time?" Yes, in fact I had the whole day. So they laid out the path for me. Take the subway to Tojinmachi, transfer at Nakasu Kawabata, then ride it to the Northernmost end of the line, in Kaizuka. THEN take a train three more stops to Kashii.

Ka Shi was a very different kind of coin shop from Fukuoka Stamp. The friendly proprietor, Junichi Fukui, seen here with a shorter man who watched television in the back room, greeted me from a shop that was converted from a small apartment. His counter was in front of the kitchen sink. The store wasn’t well kept or orderly, but often these are the most fun shops to visit, having inexpensive treasures that require only patience to dig up.

Fukui-san assisted me in finding a handful of coins I needed. He even had a brand new cardboard 2x2 coin album that I’d been seeking for my friend. It had been in his stock for over 15 years. What I really enjoyed was going through his junk box. And he did me the honor of actually buying two of my better date 50-yen pieces that I had brought to sell or barter.

  I had earned a break after all that hard coining work. That evening, as is now a tradition, I rejoined my co-workers for a night of karoke.

I only sing Frank Sinatra tunes, you know.

And I did it "My Way". Onessa! Biru Futats, itadake-mass ka! (Waitress, two beers please!)