I finally completed this difficult set when Korea was occupied under Japan back then. Japan was striking coins for Korea and as the economy in Japan struggles after the Russo-Japan war in 1904-5, the Korean coinage also takes a hit. The first of the large size Korean won was struck in 13.5g planchets in 1905 and 1906. In 1907, all silver and copper coinage had their contents reduced. This silver coin was reduced down to 10.0g. The half won was struck for another 2 more years and this is the end for this series. So how tough are these coins? Quite. Mintage are as follows: 1905 - 0.6 million 1906 - 1.35 million (Japanese sources quote 1.2 million) 1907 - 1 million 1908 - 1.4 million For coins that were struck in terms of millions, there should be plentiful of these coins. Not so true. As the Japanese economy dives war after war, it is not known how much coins were recalled from Korea to be melted down. Even after the war, the Koreans were furiously getting rid of anything that had to do with Japanese occupation. It is not known how much of these coins survived, but I am suspecting that only a mere fraction did. While these coins used to be common for sale, they seem to have vanished from the marketplace otherwise being pricy if you can find one. I find that the mintage doesn't really reflect how difficult it is to locate a couple of the years. I personally rate it as follows - 1906 being the easiest. 1906, 1907, 1908, 1905 Note that I rate 1908 coin harder to find than the 1907 despite the higher mintage. Hope you enjoyed reading!
Those coins look a bit pale - are you sure of their provenance? I'm always a bit leery about going after rare coins from anywhere in SE Asia.
The coins are all good as far as I am concerned. All of them weigh around the tolerance level and are good other than old cleaning or obvious damage. The coins may look pale because I have lighten the color up against the black background.
if anyone is still watching this after almost 6 years, what year is the second coin from the top? The one that has what we might call a plus sign as one of 4 symbols in the group at the top of the coin? That's the one that I have. My father found it in a burned out truck in 1952. I would call it nearly perfect.
Not an expert in these, but I think the Chinese characters say: "Gwang Mu Year 10" or in the Korean hangul alphabet, "광무 십년" (pronounced 'gwang mu sheep nyeon') Read the Chinese characters on the coin RIGHT to LEFT (like Arabic). The "plus" sign is the "ten." Use this chart below for Chinese character numbers: "Gwang Mu" is the name of the era, taken after "Emperor" Gwang Mu (a.k.a. King Kojong, who declared Chosun, his country, to be an empire and himself an emperor in 1897). "Sheep" means "ten" "Nyeon" (rhymes with 'sun') means "year" So "Gwang Mu Year 10" means the tenth year after the assumption of Gwang Mu as Emperor, or in Gregorian calendar rendering, 1907. The debasement of these coins after 1906 has to do with Japan's "victory" in the Russo-Japanese War, from which they lost a bit of treasure (not as bad as the Russians), but still bad. It was from this war in 1905 that made the Japanese feel that they were victims of the peace that was hashed out through the good offices of Teddy Roosevelt. You see, Japan felt that it should have been compensated by the Russian Empire for the loss of treasure and "sons and husbands" in the war, and should have gotten more of the contested islands to the north of Japan (which Japan and Russia STILL have sovereignty disputes over). They also started to hate the Americans as a result. This was the real origins of the of Pacific War in the 1930s and 1940s, from the Japanese viewpoint.
I would be curious to see what the coin looks like, after all it was in a burned down truck. Makes you wonder why it was in there. If it is what you described about the year, it is dated 1906 which is the most common of this type. However decent condition coins are always in demand.
