Featured Breaking News: Bank of Korea 2020 Proof Sets

The Bank of Korea and the South Korean Mint, KOMSCO, have announced a 2020 Proof Set of the nation's circulation coins to mark the 70th Anniversary of the Bank of Korea.

70,000 mint sets will be made and the sale price is set at 30,000-won a piece.

Each person will be allowed to register for five sets from Woori Bank and Nonghyeob Bank or at the KOMSCO site itself (https://www.komsco.com/kor). The registration begins at 9 am (South Korea time: GMT/UTC + 9h during Standard Time) on April 28th and runs to May 18th. An automatic random lottery will be triggered when the number of reservations placed exceed the number of sets for sale. The sets will be distributed in June.
More info here: https://www.bok.or.kr/portal/bbs/P0000559/view.do?nttId=10057606&menuNo=200690 Bring up the pdf. for info in Korean. Unfortunately, they aren't translating this issue announcement in English, and probably due to staffing issues due to Covid-19...

I'm not sure, but I don't think that you can purchase these sets unless you have a Korean bank-issued credit card, if past experience is any indication. I messaged the BOK to ask about this, and I'll see if they respond with an answer.

 

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Is the 1 Won aluminum? It seems so light at .73g

 

Yep, 100%.

And the 10-Won is copper-coated Al.

 

I love the 5 won turtle boat. I picked up a couple when I was living in Korea but they were circulated and not that great

 

That is actually one beautiful set. I'm tempted.

That will sell very fast I reckon.

 

Oh, absolutely.

I might have to wait until the re-sellers put 'em up on eBay for inflated prices.
Yeah, this one's gonna go for inflated prices vis-a-vis last year's resale prices, even though the BOK has been issuing their mint sets at 70,000 sets each year for about five years now..

 

Sorry guys: Not April 28th. April 29th.

It's gonna be around 7pm April 28th, though for me.

 

Please let me know what they say about the purchase and bank issued card. I should have some friends in Korea who might be able to accommodate. No sense in paying the inflated prices.

 

Sweet! Mighty kind of you.

I will post updates here...

 

In 1980 I was on a city bus in S Korea and saw a coin on the floor put my foot on it and slid it over and picked it up all cool like. It was a one won coin. At that time it took 7 of them to make one cent so I flung it back on the deck.

 

how much is 30,000 won in us money?

 

$24.76
https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=30,000&From=KRW&To=USD

 

Here's a neat video of the coin set:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1389562687857323

 

Yeah, in 1980, the One-Won coins were already pretty useless to consumers, although you could still get them as change. By about 1973~1975 the consumer price index in South Korea made the One-Won denomination much less useful as a store of value. These coins started to pile up in people's desk drawers, piggy banks and jam jars at home. By 1983, the government no longer figured taxes or utilities in increments below 10 won, so the One and Five-Won both were essentially finished after that. You can read about these coins in the article I have linked in my signature below...

 

I love the turtle ship coins. They’re actually a unit in my favourite game, Age of Empires II

 

New Image of this set. A quite different presentation and case/cover than any other BOK mint/proof set I've ever seen.

BTW, in case you guys didn't know, the last time these coins appeared in frosted proof with mirrored fields was 1982!
http://www.sujipbank.com/shop/goods/goods_view.php?goodsno=166656&category=002003009

 

Any word on needing a Korean bank card?

 

Nope. As I guessed.

I am almost CERTAIN that you cannot purchase at the Komsco site with anything other than a Korea-based credit card or one of their online payment systems, both of which require a Korean National ID number, which of course we don't have.

The only way to find out is to attempt it with a non-Korean CC.

I'm going to ask a friend in Korea to help me out. And remember, there is NO guarantee that your order will be picked, as a random lottery will be triggered once the number of orders exceeds 70,000.

 

Well, that didn't work.

At the last second, KOMSCO restricted sales of the 2020 Proof sets to "Members Only" (red circle). And that means you need an "I-Pin" or a Korean smartphone to be a member. The I-Pin or smartphone ties you to an actual person's name, address, and Korean national ID number (ie, YOU, and only YOU!) ...Korea has a checkered history of people using aliases in transactions and stock buying.



Oh, and the payment method: You have to pay through some weird money transfer device known as a "Passbook Deposit Machine (in Korean 무통장입금)," a sort of ATM in which you deposit money in order to transfer money to somewhere else.


Long story short: I'm out...

Should have known.

 

It appears I was successful getting three sets. One for each grandson and one for me.

My daughter in law (grandsons mother) is Korean. So my 1/2 Korean grandsons will each have a 2020 proof set.

They all live here in the states. Her sister (and all the rest of her family) live in Korea. The sister has zero interest in coins but was gracious enough to go online for almost four hours in the queue to score the three sets for me. She already paid the 30,000 won each, so I'm guessing we're set.

I believe shipping won't be till very end of June or early July. I'll post pix when they arrive.