You knew it was coming… here are the ‘pennies’ from Japan:
A quick look at one of the collectors websites shows many machines scattered across Japan. As usual most of these are at tourist sights, and the coins shown above were no doubt pressed at such machines.
The Japanese machines dispense blanks into the die and are all electronically made (so no turning of cranks). They’re a little more expensive as well, at ¥100 per coin. Unlike US machines they usually only offer a single image. They coins are notably higher quality, with lots of crisp detail, such as the above from the ‘Odaiba Takoyaki Museum’.
Looking ahead to our next trip (in a month) I see a few machines at some of the locations we will attend. Maybe I’ll be adding to this collection sooner than I expected!
And finally we end this showcase with the coins pressed in Australia. Once again these use blanks instead of real coins, and the quantity I have suggest the machines are reasonably common.
As usual these are mostly found at tourist locations, but I don’t recall if they resemble the US machines (with multiple designs) or the Japanese ones. I find it amusing the relatively small gift store at The Big Banana had a coin machine: I suppose they’re inexpensive to manufacture and presumably pay for themselves since these coins are cheap souvenirs.
I’ve got a little more to say about this collection, but I’ll save those thoughts for a final post tomorrow.