extant4cell Posted February 5, 2018 Report Share Posted February 5, 2018 I'd like to continue exploring old Korean coins. This interest comes from the thread in Russian section, that was the only section on the forum that I'd ever visited: I am fascinated by Russian overstruck coins, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Russian drive to overstrike coins was not restricted to Russia only, and that other countries were affected by this drive just as well. After reading and researching Korean coins of the last king and the first emperor of Korea in one person, I know now that some of Korean coins were struck over in China to produce CASH coins, etc. Gxseries have shown a few examples of those in his previous posts in this section of the forum (just search "Korea 5 fun")... However, I haven't found anything on Korea striking coins over with the new image. I don't know if that has ever happen, but I just found one example of 5 FUN 1986, that may as well be a restrike to correct error, which I still find very interesting. Can anyone show me any other examples of Korean old coins with machine restrikes / overstrikes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted February 5, 2018 Report Share Posted February 5, 2018 Very interesting! I have been collecting Korean coins for quite a while. While there is some quality control issue with the Incheon mint such as die rotation, weight tolerance - it's very rare to encounter error coins. To me, this looks like a die clash coin and I have not seen a clearer example like this. The Chinese overstruck over Korean 5 fun is a completely different matter - these copper coins were exported to China as scrap metal and some crooks used these as planchets to overstrike as new coins. As such, only Eastern side of China were flooded with such coins. While most coins are of contemporary overstrike counterfeits, there are some examples that seem like they are from the official mints. Looks like you got stuck with a new bug? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted February 5, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2018 It is certainly addictive ... You are right, it is the die clash! Well spotted. How many mints worked, producing coins with machine press, around 1895-1999? What was the movement of the equipment? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted February 6, 2018 Report Share Posted February 6, 2018 extant4cell, there was only one mint (Incheon) that stuck these coins from 1892 to 1899. Yongsan came online later but for a very short period of time 1898 to 1902. The mint was setup with the help of a German diplomat, Mollendorf and Japanese mint officers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Georg_von_Möllendorff And I didn't realize how important he is. It seems clear that Korea did not want to sandwiched between China and Japan and wanted more support which Russia came into play. This view still exist today when you talk to any Korean on the street; they feel frustrated with their country's politics as they feel that they are bullied between China and Japan's politics. At that time, literally everything had to be imported from Japan - mint technology all the way down to planchets. I believe the 5 yang, quarter yang, 5 fun planchets are the same to the Japanese 1 yen, 5 sen and 1 sen planchets; 1 fun and 1 yang coins had to be specially made. I could be wrong about the 1 yang coin but I'm certain it's a bit smaller than the 20 sen coin. While there is no mintage figures available, there seems to be strong indication that the mint was behind production. While there are coins dated 1892 and 1893, these coins were only released in circulation in 1894. To make matters worse, the Chinese Emperor Yuan Shi Kai at that time strongly objected to the wording "Great Korea", hence the varieties of "Great Korea" and "Korea". Please feel free to use this as a reference from my collection https://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/korea_year_type_album Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted February 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2018 Thank you! I will. They also had big ties with Americans after Russia withdrew it's advisors... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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