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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;mlov43, post: 2355285, member: 16729&quot;]Along with the Valcambi and Paris Mint gold coins, the South Korean 1970 &quot;5,000 Years of Korean History&quot; commemoratives appeared as 6-coin silver sets.&nbsp;&nbsp; These silver sets were issued in the typical vinyl and plastic cases in which the issuing company (Italcambio) distributed its other world-coin commemorative sets.&nbsp; Here is the Korean silver set (right) alongside another Italcambio product, a silver set for Dahomey, a francophone African country now known as Benin (left).[ATTACH=full]479911[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Italcambio had issued similar precious-metal commemorative sets for various countries around the world, about 27 countries in all.&nbsp;&nbsp; It used the Arezzo, Italy &quot;Gori &amp;Zucchi Mint&quot; as well as the State Mints in Germany at Karlsruhe to mint these&nbsp; Korean silver coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Italcambio was a major player in the coin collecting world in the USA in the late 1960s and early 1970s.&nbsp; &quot;Money that is Art, Art that is Money&quot; was the tagline of their full-page ads in the numismatic magazines of the time.&nbsp;&nbsp; The company was (and still is) based out of Caracas, Venezuela(!!) and was established by the Italian, Mario Pizzorni, an art-collecting entrepreneur with organized-crime connections.&nbsp; So it figures that while Italcambio was selling its Korean coins in the 1970~1974 period, it had its distribution center in Florida.&nbsp;&nbsp; While it no longer operates as a &quot;private mint,&quot; its &quot;banking business&quot; is still around.&nbsp;&nbsp; Probably laundering money...</p><p><br /></p><p>Italcambio deserves to researched and written about for an article in one of the more popular coin publications, simply because of the number of world commemorative sets that they produced, along with its colorful past.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some of the gold coins were issued in their own jewel cases, like this 10K Won gold Valcambi strike.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]479912[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]479913[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Just as interesting was the story behind how the &quot;Moonies&quot; (a.k.a. the Unification Church) attempted to skim something off the top of the sale of these coins in the early 1970s.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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