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Message:: [QUOTE="mlov43, post: 3598940, member: 16729"]Sorry for the late reply, [USER=112]@GDJMSP[/USER] , [USER=59677]@Burton Strauss III[/USER] , and [USER=101260]@Legomaster1[/USER] , but I just got back from Korea on a research trip where I got some very decent access to the information that I need for my book, as well as interviews with the former and current lead Design/Engraving Team General Managers at the Korean Mint.  This is the Korean equivalent to meeting and interviewing, say, John Mercanti and Joe Menna.  They showed me around the design and engraving room.  I saw some plasters being worked on(!) for upcoming commemorative coins and some past ones that I recognized used as decorations around the office. We also met some of the working engravers and designers (the designer of the current 50,000-Won and 10,000-Won banknote came in to serve ice coffees!).I also met with the president of the premier auction house in Korea to request permission to use his auction images.  I am a very lucky person to have had the access that I did on this trip.  The Mint and Bank of Korea are very uncompromising when it comes to getting images of dies, plasters, and original design sketches of the early (1960s) coins, and original documents, but I am very lucky nonetheless...They did however give me their own, not-for-public internal publications (Mint histories that they publish every 10 years.  I got the 2001 and 2011 histories, chocked full of detailed information on the development of the Mint). To answer your questions/comments: Well, it seems that people have different definitions of seigniorage, that's for sure!  I won't belabor this point, but seigniorage was used to finance the 1972 Munich Games, and those coins were never used as currency, either, but the Munich Olympic Committee got funding from this source anyway.  How did that happen? You want your head really spun around?  Look up the term "Monetary Seigniorage:" -Monetary seignorage, where sovereign-issued securities are exchanged for newly minted bank notes by a central bank, thus allowing the sovereign to 'borrow' without needing to repay.[3] However, monetary seignorage refers to the sovereign revenue obtained through routine debt monetization, including expanding the money supply during GDP growth and meeting yearly inflation targets.[3]Seigniorage is a convenient source of revenue for some governments. By providing the government with increased purchasing power at the expense of the public's purchasing power, it imposes what is metaphorically known as an inflation tax on the public." No, there would have been gold coins anyway, Doug, as it was part of the commemorative-coin issue 'master plan' at the Bank of Korea long before the marketers were chosen.  I don't know all the details, and that's probably been lost to history, but the marketers probably added this to sweeten the deal, and probably because they had some inroads with Samuel Montague, the British supplier of the gold. Here's the original Korean, from the book, "Korean Commemorative Coins," (2006) authored by former designer, Jo Byeong-soo, and the appointed Art Director of these 1988 Seoul Olympics coins:  "또한 서울올림픽조직위원회가 기념화를 한국은행으로부터 인수할 경우 금화에 한하여 액면금액 이외에 제조비에서 액면을 차감한 금액을 별도로 한국은행에 지급키로 하였다." Translated, it says: "Also, in the case of the gold commemorative coins that the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee acquired from the Bank of Korea, in addition to the face value of gold coins, the Olympic Committee decided to pay the Bank of Korea the amount of the deduction of the face value from the manufacturing cost." Sounds like seigniorage to me, Doug.[/QUOTE]

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