Surprising Auction Results for a Korean Coin

I was surprised at the price for a Five-Won Gold coin from the Korean Empire era (1908), even though this auction happened back in 2016 in Korea. The equivalent of $144,700 USD (in 2016 USD) is really impressive for a Korean collector coin.

That is, until I saw this one:

A 20-Won Gold of this same series sold for $632,500 USD in NGC MS-64 (Norman Jacobs Collection) in 2011 at Heritage.

I had no idea that Korean coins have sold for so high...

 

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South Korea has been a full blown first-world country for at least 4 decades. I'd actually be surprised if a robust numismatic base had not developed along with whales that pay exorbitant prices for the top tier coins .

 

More like 3 decades, but I get your point... Yes, there must be whales there. Ones that hold onto their coins, too: You just don't see these really big coins like these at auction in Korea very much in the last few years.

 

I don't know that I'd say they're first world for even three decades.

True story:

When my son brought his S. Korean wife to our home in the states in 2013 for the first time she was mortified and honestly scared to sleep in our guest room. Why, you ask? Because there was a ceiling fan in the room. Apparently, in the S. Korean culture they're taught that a circulating fan in a bedroom will suck the air out of the room and you'll suffocate.

I can't fathom that this lore would survive in a first world country as recent as 2013.

 

You don't think people in the US believe some wacky stuff?

 

The Korean gold coins struck in Osaka mint are excessively rare in any condition. Believe that came from Jacob's collection which is really impressive.

There has been some very rare sales in the last decade

Some notable examples have been:

1892 proof set (with original box!)
1886 pattern coinage
Russo Korean coinage
1888 1 warn
1893 1 hwan
Any of the non common nickel copper coins (1897, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1909)
1899 5 fun. There are a couple more 5 fun varieties that are hard to find as well

The 1892 5 yang is much easier to obtain compared to any of the coins mentioned above!

 

Yeah, the Fan Death thing should be pretty debunked by now. That was one interesting urban legend. The claim in the media was that the blades of spinning fans "chopped up the air molecules" (or sucks the air away from your nose and mouth) and people became robbed of oxygen and that's what caused the cases of people who had gone to sleep and were found dead in the morning. Especially if you keep the windows and doors to the room closed, Fan Death will "get you," it was believed.

Completely forgotten or overlooked (or hidden) by the family members was likely the fact that the person who died was blitzed out of their mind, an alcoholic and was on death's door, or was someone who accidentally drank alcohol in combination with prescription drugs and that killed them. A fan just happened to be running in the room when the person was found, and so the suspect was quickly identified(!). Fan Death was an idea mimetically promoted by the Korean media, big time. I bought a fan back in the 1990s in Korea and it had this sticker on it:
"Caution" it reads.

I mean A LOT of Korean people who were smart enough to know better didn't feel comfortable enough to call B.S. on the existence of Fan Death, not even doctors, who knew it was B.S. That's how bad it was. I think it was one brave doctor that went on TV one year and spoke out against the Fan Death beliefs and that seemed to have started the slow crumbling of the myth. It's been a pretty durable urban legend, though, and it lasted way too long among the public!

If Fan Death is real, I should be dead for sure. I slept with a fan on (for white noise, mostly) blowing on me every night in a buttoned-up basement room from the time I was 10 to the age of 20 or so. Even in winter.

 

These were sales outside of Korea, correct? I know these rare examples shown above are well-known in the non-Korean numismatic community, and many of these coins have ended up outside of Korea and in collections worldwide. Some of them have begun migrating back to Korea with these "whales" purchasing them at auction.

 

I've seen many of these coins sold on Hwadong auctions with the exception of the gold coins. I believe these are much harder to find at overseas market. It took me at least a couple of decades to assemble what I have right now.

That said, some rare pieces do pop up in Japan which makes sense as Japan did rule Korea for some period of time. In particular, the Russo Korean coinage supposedly did circulate for a very short period of time in 1905 and were actively culled by the Japanese.

 

Ya. I recently saw some statistics about the numbers of Americans that believe things about the shape of the Earth, Moon landing, Bigfoot, etc...... and it really makes you wonder how we've managed to last this long

I could of course point to a whole other set of irrational beliefs commonly held in Western, first world populations.... but I don't think we're allowed to broach those types of topics around here

 

You reminded me to update what I have...

http://gxseries.com/numis/koreatype/koreatype_early_all.htm