Owner Comments:
The first film released by Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli came out in Japan in August of 1986 - most of these wouldn’t see translated broad releases in the United States until much later. The film was named “Laputa: Castle in the Sky.” The film would have some limited release in the US, but it wouldn’t really become very popular until it was re-released in 2003.
Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have produced a ton of great animated films over the years, several of which are in my DVD collection including “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” “Castle in the Sky” (2003 English release of the 1986 film), “Porco Rosso,” “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Princess Mononoke,” and “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
A lot of these movies didn’t come to the US until the early 2000’s in part because of a 1984 Miyazaki film called “Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind,” which New World Pictures significantly altered and released as “Warriors of the Wind” in 1985. This lead Miyazaki and Ghibli to have a strict “No cuts” policy that led to none of the Studio Ghibli films being dubbed for broad US release for a long time. Then, after the popularity of Spirited Away in 2001, Disney did a more faithful edit of Nausicaa in 2003 and several of the other films got a big release with a lot of fan fair at long last, and that’s how I got introduced to most of these around the time I was 16, and now I try to watch them with my sons.
75% Copper, 25% Nickel (Cupronickel)
Mintage: 361,819,140
5.0 grams
21.2 mm diameter
Designer: Felix Schlag
Monticello Reverse (1938-2003)
This coin was purchased with the other MS66 5FS nickel currently residing in the set in November 2018. Making these the first new coins purchased for the set in several years (since at least Feb 2011) and the first upgrades made to this set after I met my wife.
My stepfather and I - somewhat randomly - took a look back at these sets with an eye to try to fill in some of the remaining holes - particularly in the 1983 set.
After a conversation and a few emails with my stepfather, I found myself at work on a slow day with an internet connection and I decided to start looking around on eBay. I found a lot of coins that could have filled in holes in the 1982, 1983, and 1958 sets, but I also went looking for coins that could have been used to upgrade and improve the 1986 set. The 1986 set is for my birth year and, as such, it's always been a pet project of mine. I found these two nickels, both of which the seller had put on sale for 10% of, perhaps as part of some holiday sales that always seem to go on throughout the month of November these days. I also found an MS67 1986-D quarter, which would have been a major addition to this set, but that coin was significantly more expensive than both of these nickels put together and it was just more than we were looking to spend on upgrading this set at the time. My stepfather decided to pull the trigger and get these nickels, bumping out two more of the original coins in the set that we submitted ourselves about 11 years prior.