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Found another
French Indochina 20 cent
1941-S

 

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Fiji Penny
1942-S
Brass

 

South Korea
50-Hwan (10/30/1959 to 7/11/1962)
Later circulated as "Five-Won" (8/28/1962 to 3/22/1975)
Diameter: 22.86mm
Thickness: 1.27mm
Weight: 3.69g
Obverse Design: 16th Century Joseon Royal Navy "Turtle Ship"
Reverse Design: Denomination numeral and arabesque pattern.


Having taken over the South Korean government in a coup detat, General Park Chung-hee inspects crates of U.S. Philadelphia Mint-made 50-Hwan coins (still in their U.S.-made wooden boxes) in the Bank of Korea's vaults; January 1962. The Governor of the central bank (on the right, wearing glasses) was appointed by Park a few months before. At this time, these two were hatching a secret currency-reform plan in which these coins would be re-valued downward at a 10 to 1 rate, and circulate as "Five-Won" coins.

 

Philippines
Five centavos
1944-S

 

Philippines
One centavo
1944-S

 

So are the characters above the "50" some kind of countermark indicating the changed value?

Christian

 

1920 Cuba 10 Centavos, Designed by Charles E. Barber and minted at Philadelphia mint.

 

No.
Those are countermarks saying, "kyeon yang" or "Sample" in English. These countermarks were added to all coins that foreign collectors ordered from the Bank of Korea years ago. According to their rules (at the time?), the Koreans had to mark their coins with this countermark if they sent/sold their coinage overseas. This is according an article written by Joseph E. Boling in 1988. He wrote,

"ROK specimen coins are virtually unique among modern issues in their availability outside official channels. No other nation known to me routinely applied specimen markings to her coins. ROK law prohibited the export of her currency, even in token amounts, so anyone outside of Korea who ordered a 4292 (1959)-dated coin set from the central bank received a set with "sample" stamped on the reverse in two characters. These are by no means common, but are nevertheless occasionally available, whereas such items from other nations are hardly ever seen, let alone available."

 

One of the more interesting American made coins, this time for China via Mexico.

In 1949 the San Francisco Mint struck 2,000,000 and the Mexico City Mint struck 8,000,000 copies of the 1898 Mexico Peso for use in paying soldiers of Nationalist China who were fighting the Communists.


Mexico peso 1898 - 1949 Restrike