Japanese Auction question

Awesome - we all know how much you wanted that... now we gotta see pics!!!!!!

 

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Congrats! Still waiting on mine...

 

Oh, alright...



This is a Clear Cast-Resin "Korea-Kuwait Banking Corporation" contemporary coin set/paperweight (circa late 1970s). Rather underwhelming, I know. Thank goodness there are no key-dates or other important coins in this resin: I'd be tempted to crack them out, and I've destroyed coins doing that before.

This non-Bank of Korea product was obviously assembled by a private company as a gift item distributed by the "Korea-Kuwait Banking Corporation." The latest-date coin in the set is a 1977 One-Won coin, so this paperweight coin set dates from at least that year. I've been looking for this thing since I first saw one go for some ridiculous price (way over $100 USD) a few years ago.

This set has some historical significance since this company was clearly a banking entity involved with Korean construction companies operating in Persian Gulf states in the 1970s. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia contracted Korean businesses to develop their infrastructure for petroleum extraction (sort of the Korean versions of the U.S. company, Halliburton). This activity is what helped propel South Korea's per capita GNP sixfold from 1970 to 1980. Other lucky breaks also helped. For example, South Korean companies like Hyundai were allowed to sell the "sub-compact" class of their cars in the USA after the U.S. Congress embargoed Japanese companies from selling these cars in the States, but did not embargo Korean companies, who had free reign to sell their cars without much competition from Detroit, which wasn't interested in selling these cars. The relatively open market environment in the North Atlantic economy to these, and other South Korean products, helped the Koreans to create the world's 12th largest economy.

And as far as the 2020 Proof Set, yes! I did finally get it (two actually), after it spent some time as a 3-month guest of USPS in Chicago. People in Korea complained about the quality of the sets. Well, mine was perfectly fine, even under 5X magnification. I have a pretty good contact in Korea who LOVES U.S. coins. We traded, and he was blown away by some really gem-condition 90% and 40% silver Kennedy halves and a 1926 Sesquicentennial half that I found for him.

 

Cool on ALL counts!!!!!!