Old Korean coins offer an unusually interesting insight into ancient Korean culture and the strong influence of Chinese cosmic principles, philosophy, religious beliefs, etc. For example, some of the sang pyong tong bo coins that Korea cast during the years 1633-1891 used several "numbering" systems to indicate furnace and series numbers. Besides using actual Chinese numbers, some of these coins used symbols such as "dots" (stars), "circles" (suns) and "crescents" (moons) in a manner similar to ancient Chinese coins. Even more interesting, however, was the use of characters from "The Thousand Character Classic", the "Five Elements", the "Ten Celestial Stems", the "Twelve Terrestrial Branches", the "Eight Trigrams", as well as a number of other "Miscellaneous Characters". Even the ancient Chinese did not utilize as many "numbering" systems on their coins. If you happen to have an interest in the history and culture of Korea as expressed through its coins, please feel welcome to visit a new page at my website on Korean Coins. Gary
Oh...wow. Nice website, man. Hey, nice website. Very informative and rather extensive. I don't get into Korean coins that are older than 1959, myself, but I will be visiting your webpage more often to take a look it in-depth, as it is related to Korean coins. I was wondering about the difference between 환 (Hwan) and 원 (Won)... The currency was called the "Hwan" in the 1950s (the 1959 coins that you show on your webpage), but this currency was demonetized in 1962 and the "Won" came out. I know that the Chinese character for "Won" means "round" (as in "round coin"), and derives from the same ideograph (character) used in Chinese for "Yuan" and in Japanese for "Yen," or so I've been told. I never did understand why the Koreans changed the name from Hwan to Won... I am personally interested in finding out who designed and engraved the South Korean coins designs of 1966 (1Won, 5Won, 10Won), 1970 (100Won), 1972 (50Won) and the 1983 redesigns at the Bank of Korea and KOMSCO (한국조폐공사). I've enquired several times with both the BOK and KOMSCO (in both English and Korean) and I have yet to receive a decent reply. The Bank of Korea wrote back to me once saying only that "many people" are involved in their coin designs. However, I once saw that a designer who worked at KOMSCO since 1977 (now retired) was interviewed by a Korean media company in 2005. I asked the Bank of Korea about this person and they gave me an out-of-date email address. I wanted to ask the guy to see if HE knew something. I even tried to find information at the Korean national library in Seoul, but it seems there hasn't been anything written on the subject. I guess WHO did the designing and engraving doesn't really matter to people in some countries, huh? I'd like this information so that I can add it to the inside front cover of my Korean coin albums (you can see my albums at youtube, just search for "korean coins", and they're the ones in the Dansco albums). Thanks for your hard work in putting this up on the web!
Yeah, it's my favorite design of the entire S. Korean series. Prior to that coin, the 500-Won denomination was a banknote. They remonetized it as a coin in 1982, supposedly because people needed a larger denomination coin for vending machines. Korean friends of mine have told me that when they changed the 500Won from a banknote to a coin, people perceived the "value" of 500 Won to be much less than when it was a note.
