I had a pretty rough year and have been sorting out what I have in my collection to get rid of the duplicates. I am cleaning out my Korean coin album and found this rather rare coin that I didn't get around to catalog. I remember fighting a bitter war to complete this set and it was well worth it. Struck in Osaka Mint, this particular coin is definitely uncommon and I have only seen it appear on major auctions perhaps once a year if not less. Korean and Japanese catalog do not mention a mintage figure however Krause reckons about 5 million were minted. I think that the survival rate for this coin is lot lower than what many think. In fact, I found it is harder to find compared to the lowest mintage coin of this series 1907 1/2 chon which was estimated at 800,000. While the coin may not be in the best condition, it stands a good chance for conservation. Even harshly cleaned coin are hard to come by. That's assuming if you can even come across one for starters. There's one available at Stack's and it's going for a fair amount. http://www.stacksbowers.com/browseauctions/lotdetail.aspx?AuctionID=6048&Lot=30066 Needless to say, let's see some photos: 1906 1/2 chon 1907 1/2 chon 1908 1/2 chon 1909 1/2 chon 1910 1/2 chon Hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to post any of these Korean coins. I'll get around to photoshop them to show them along side by side.
Nice! I collect Korean cast coinage (among other things) and can appreciate how hard it is to complete any set of Korean coins. They are harder to come by than they should be.
Congrats on a nice set. Some of these are indeed much tougher than most people think, especially in nice condition like yours are.
