Experiences in Japan - bullion and coins

Hi all..

just thought I would post some things I found out today when i tried to purchase pms in Japan..

Went into one of the bullion shops which is part of the Tanaka group which is basically the place to be for bullion... well the front was a nice jewellery shop then when I mentioned bullion they escorted me out to the closed off bullion area.

Firstly I asked about silver bullion...30kg was the minimum physical! They don't do anything else other... he look at me pretty weird when I said that in Australia we can buy down to 1oz. haha..

So then I moved to the other options. Gold and Platinum were the standards there - they had a bunch of the bars on display. 500g was there preferred sale size in both. Hmm.. 500g would be nice.. but not going to happen considering that of course it was cash only. The also had Gold and plat maples and gold phils and plat eagles.. but I really wanted something "japanese"

I asked about smaller sizes as I really wanted to pick up something token to take home. When I asked about 1oz or 5,10g etc they kinda quickly told me the fees were too high and then escorted me out of the shop.. haha... Anyway some more research in the hotel found that those sizes are available with around $50 premium on top of "their" spot price. So it isn't that bad. I am going to head into one of their other shops tomorrow with a bit more knowledge and see if I can see if the smaller gold sizes come in nice packaging... but maybe won't bother....

After that failure I headed over to one of the large coin shops. They were dealers for a lot of the world mints etc. I found a 1oz Silver proof dragon sitting there fro 14,000yen ... pity i just bought one! I checked out some of the 100,000 yen Gold Japanese coin... temping to go back. I was tempted with some of the Astro Boy coins from GB...They had some 1/2 oz silver bullion dragons there for 1800 yen which wasn't too bad.

On the dragon story they had a 1kg silver dragon there as well.. in a green perth mint case.. i don't think it was proof - but didn't have a close look. at 110000 yen now that i think about it .. if it was proof maybe it was ok.. but I am not into that stuff (but seem to buy them!) anyway.

It was a nice store but had the somewhat usual coin shop staff who seemed a little up themselves... I guess i was just some bum from Australia.. but.. .oh well was a little like the bullion shop experience.

I picked up a couple of the 1oz Japan prefecture series coins and a couple of canada mints coins and then headed out.

So.. when I expected a city of 20 million to have in the way of coins and bullion so far hasn't really worked out. Am going to do a little more research and see what else I can dig up.

Anyway - just thought I would share that experience with you.

Cheers
Skip

 

I've ordered Silver Medallions directly from the Japanese mint.

http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-174699.html#p174699

They don't really do bullion as far as I know, they distribute a lot of their collectible coinage to distributors such as Downies though.

Perhaps you could visit them if you pass through, they might have some sales in their local retail store for tourists.

More information here: http://www.mint.go.jp/eng/coin/mint_shop.html

 

Haha, as opposed to our erm... lovely fellas in an unnamed Brisbane CBD shop


Sounds like you had an interesting time out there... I'm going to be visiting a few places when I head back to the UK in January, maybe a 'bullion traveller' section would be good.

Did you get any pics while you were there?

 

Thanks for the tip there - It seems HQ for Japan mint is in Osaka but they do have a Mint shop in Tokyo... so I will head there tomorrow. And now that I check the map I must have actually walked past it on the way to the other coin shop!!!! argghh.!

I did see some of the Japan Mint medallions in the coin shop I went to (Taisai Coins) and they looked pretty sweet.

Wasn't allowed to take any photos in the coin shop, but did manage to iphone a couple when i was checking prices online... will post em up when i get back.

 

30kg luggage @_@

 

I easily purchased 10g bars and Edo period (reproduction) coins at tanaka Shinjuku in August and they had no shortage of either. At the time they did not sell silver and were only into plat. and gold, great shop tho!

 

ps, their tax is 5% so dont forget to wave your passport around and ask for tax free.

 

I went to the Shinjuku branch... maybe it was just my dodgy Japanese that was letting me down! I will see how I go in the Ginza branch

 

You gotta get your self a 5, 10 or 20g edo period coin they look fantastic and come in a great presentation box. They do have a reasonable premium but the plain tanaka bars are affordable if you dont want to pay the higher coin premium. They should be keen to do business as I do know they are buying around 10 tonne(yes 10 tonne) per month and only selling about 3 tonne per month! The Japanese are one of the few countries that the public is selling what they have and not buying so much. I'm going back for more in April.

 

hey ILN,

do you have any pics of the jap coins/bars?

would love to see some..

rml78

 

I went back in today after doing a little more japanese srudy and I asked about the edo replica coins and they told me the only gold they available was the 5,10,20g etc bars or gold maples or philharmonics.

We had a look at the stocks they had and I ended up nit buying as have to pay 10% gst and only wanted to buy if really cool looking

If you did have a photo that would be cool as I could at least find out what happened to them.

Going to check out the mint shop next and get some of those silver medallions but has to wait until Monday

 

Hey skipau,

try and see if you can still get that Nikko Toshogu medallion. They told me they stopped for the time being and are re-evaluating prices. That chunk of silver is nice.

Cheers and all the best.

 

how about numismatics market in Japan? any chance to grab some aussie coins in there easily with bargain price?

 

Have you figured out why the Japanese invest in government bonds with nearly zero interest rate instead of buying gold? Japanese people supposed to have one of the highest IQ and I'm wondering why couldn't they work out that in the last 10 years.
Are they brainwashed with government propaganda?

 

I'll see what I can do, need the young uns to post pics . Will do when I can.

 

I wouldn'y buy any gold or silver from Japan - they're not a trading nation.
Or rather, they're not an "international business" nation.
Of course they do business to buy and sell what they need on the global markets, but when YOU want to buy and sell...that's a different story becuase you're "uninvited".
I think in the end that's one of China's strengths, because they want to do business with the world.

There's no such thing as flippers in Japan and they make it very inconvenient for people to buy and sell.
For example, non-Japanese bullion that is LBMA approved automatically suffers a 5% reduction in selling price for no other reason than not being a domestic product.
In Japan, they pour their silver at .9999, so if you come in with the standard .999 investment grade stuff, they will charge you extra to assay the items.
You get shafted at both ends of the deal.

In my opinion, Japan is only good if you want to get a few collectable curiosities and that's about it.
I personally avoid numismatics and coinage in general, so while I consider myself a stacker and go to Japan often, Japan is a non-entity to me when it comes to the or and the argent.

 

i'd like buy one skyline sport car in japan!!lol

 

[imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/895_japan_gold_012.jpg][/imgz][imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/895_japan_gold_011.jpg][/imgz][imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/895_japan_gold_010.jpg][/imgz][imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/895_japan_gold_008.jpg][/imgz]
Hey rml978 for your viewing pleasure, edo coin comes in box and tanaka bar in pretty pouch as pictured.

 

thanks heaps for the pictures! That was great. I took them into the shop and they told me they had finished those and only had just the bars themselves... so that was a bummer.

I ended up heading to the Japan mint shop and I bought 2 medalions




and a paper weight. The shop was tiny and I think the Osaka mint office is better.. but the workers basically told me to go to coin dealers as they don't sell most of their stuff direct to public.

 

looks awesome! how much you cost for them? is that 999 silver?