1892 Korea 5 Yang - Genuine or Fake?

I'm fairly certain that the "carbon spots" are just artificial aging and applied on purpose. They appear in one form or another consistently on modern Chinese counterfeits.
Just one of several tactics used to dissuade people from submitting the coins to TPGs.

 

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To makes things even more complicated, I checked my records of what the weight of my 1 yang coins are. They are all over the place, ranging from low 5.25g up to 5.52g (!). The average weight range are within 5.3g mark. Technical weight of this coin is supposedly 5.2g. All the other coins - nickel copper and copper coins all face similar large weight variance issue.

Maybe a study of these coins would be interesting...

 

I've noticed the same thing for Chinese provincial issues from the late 19th-early 20th century. I think this may be why Krause doesn't even list weights for most of these beyond the Empire issues. I have one common Manchurian provinces 20 cent around here somewhere that is 0.3 grams under "reference" weight, but appears to be perfectly genuine and is solid silver.
I'll check the weight of my coins for your study. I have a 1 yang and also a 1/2 won, maybe even more than one of each.

 

Numismat - the weight of silver coins are actually dependent on the province where they were struck at.

Most silver coins from that era were struck close to technical specifications with the exception of Kirin Province (Jilin) which is well known to be at least 5% under. Merchants either did not accept Kirin coins or traded them at a discount. The same was with Gansu Province as their silver coins were struck in lower purity.

I was not aware of the under weight Manchurian Province coins until I looked at my examples and they were around the 5.1g mark. And you are right - they are supposed to be of the weight 1.44 mace - 1 mace is about 3.78g which meant that it should be around 5.44g. As of why it is underweight, I do not know. Maybe because of the hardship they were facing with the Russians and Japanese, they were allowed to get away with it. Very interesting - will do a bit more research. I speculate that mints were 'forced' to strike coins at a budget but of course, the public would not be fooled. So far, all the provinces mentioned all did face a common issue - they were financially worse off compared to their peers.

Nevertheless back to the Korean coins, it is most certainly an interesting area. I believe the later coinage (1/2 won) would be within weight tolerance as it was struck in Osaka mint. Earlier coins struck before 1902 would be an interesting study as they were struck in Korea.

 

Ok here are some results:

Average weight range of

1 yang (1892 - 1898): 5.3g. Ranged from 5.19g to 5.52g. As of why the range is so large, I cannot explain unless there maybe be counterfeits that I failed to detect.
1/4 yang (1892 - 1896): 4.6g. Surprisingly the variance of this particular type is quite small from 4.45g to 4.66g. Did not include 1898 as there's just too mmuch speculation when it comes to possible counterfeits.
5 fun (1892 - 1902): 7.1g. Ranged from 6.41g to 7.22g
1 fun (1892 - 1896): 3.3g. Ranged from 3.2g to 3.4g

Coins struck in Osaka mint had a much small weight variance within +- 0.05g, rarely exceeding 0.1g.

I just realized how much I have collected through the years - it's enough to make some kind of interesting database should I choose to. That said, I think I've uploaded a fair amount of weight information together with the photos at omnicoin.

 

Mine weighs in at 5.4 grams and is 23mm in diameter.

I did notice a very heavily mirrored fields, but I think that's due to an old polishing. Though, I guess there's a very slim possibility that those fine hairlines that I see are die polish marks for a proof strike (?!). I can't make out with my loupe if those hairlines dig into the coin or are above the surface.

 

iPen - it may not hurt to send it for grading. One to confirm authenticity and the other for its grade.

For reference this is mine. This weighs at 5.41g



I don't recall mine has such reflective surfaces. As far as I am aware, there were a few sets of proof coins struck in 1892 and all of them are considered rare to find. There were a couple of times I have seen online a complete set with the original mint case sold and they went for some serious money. Not too sure if I did save those photos... Believe the case was purple.

If it is indeed a proof coin, it may be a five figure (!).

 

Yours is a nice and problem-free looking one

I'll submit it to NGC by this weekend - it'll probably come back as cleaned but it'd still be worth it to me if I upgrade it. If I remember, then I'll post the grade and results back on this thread.

 

Hey everyone! Just got my first 502 Yang in today. It passed all my tests, but came in at 5.3 grams.

http://imgur.com/a/YJvSeFx