S. Korean mint set!

Hey cointalk,
I payed a visit to the Bank of Korea money museum yesterday, and it turned out to be a great place for Korean and Chinese coin collectors. It displayed a large collection of Chinese and Korean cash, and also a lot of Korean trial banknotes and Specimens. They also have straps from Korean notes with serials 1 to 100. They do have a variety of coins, but if you go there expecting a lot of American coins, they don't have that many, just some Peace dollars, Morgans, a seated Half, and some 50 states quarters. Overall, it was a mouth-watering experience wish I could just buy the entire collection! And a question, Why does it seem that most slabs in Korea are NGC? Cause all the slabbed coins there were NGC slabs.
And I purchased a decent Korean 2013 mint set, the 1 and 5 wons have low mintage, due to the fact that they are no longer used in circulation. For 7200 won (US 7 dollars), it's certainly more affordable than US ones.

 

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Woah cool mint set! Your parents go with you ??

 

My mom did, cause I used my own money I got it.

 

Maybe NGC gave them a good deal on
slabbing?

 

Very nice set. Would not mind one.

 

Who's the guy with the beard?

 

Admiral Sun-Shin Lee. Fought the Japanese off Korea some time 5 centuries ago.

 

No, almost every slab in korea is

 

Thanks. I like the circular layout of the mint set.

 

I don't know then. Both PCGS and NGC
have expanded operations but I recall
anything about S. Korea. Why don't
you hit them with an email?

 

NGC has been the premier slabber for world coins for years. NGC actively worked the market for years before PCGS really started paying any attention to it. And with the extra experience they do a better job at identification and grading than PCGS does.

True, one the other hand the Korean set has seven coins while the US set has 28.

 

What did she think when you bought it? Pretty cool? Boring?

 

Hey Rick, nice buy! I just recently bought mine from Sujipbank. I get two of these every year: One to break out the coins for each of my albums, and one for my Bank of Korea mint set collection. I have all the BOK mint sets from 1995 to present.

I also just bought my first "foreign" BOK mint set (meant for sale outside of Korea):


The BOK has been making only 3,000 of these kind every year since 2006. You can tell they're the "foreign" kind, as they only have English written on them.

 

About NGC slabs: Condor101 is right: NGC has been working with World Coins longer, and they get things RIGHT on their slab tags. PCGS can be surprisingly unknowledgeable when it comes to world varieties, errors, etc.

I'm guessing that one big reason must be the fact that NGC grading is simply cheaper.

 

Why do you buy 666 wons for 7200 won???
Quote mom

 

Dude, you have a 1998 Mint set?? I've seen it sell for $1000 and more!

 

I've got two of them. Yep, they sell for around that. I got one of them in one of the little shops in the Hoehyeon Underground in the same neighborhood as the BOK Museum you just visited. I'm sure you know the place. I paid a 1,000,000 KRW for that particular one. Go to youtube and search "bank of korea mint sets" and you'll see both of mine.

 

Because unlike other hobbies, coin collecting is the only hobby where you can spend ALL your money and still have some left over.

Someone on the forum had this quote, i forgot who. But thanks!

 

How much is a million won in US $ ?

 

The S. Korean Won (KRW) NORMALLY hovers around 1,000 Won to 1 USD. It has for the last 10 years anyway.

Sometimes the exchange rate is good for me (when I'm holding USD) and is at 1,200 won to the dollar or more. When I worked in Korea 20 years ago, the exchange rate favored the Won more, say at 900 Won to 1 USD. Then the Asian Financial Crisis hit in 1997, and it hasn't been near that since.