SOUTH KOREA'S 1975 LIBERATION COMMEMORATIVE COIN

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V18 2015 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 18, Number 24, June 14, 2015, Article 29

Here is another article in my series on South Korean numismatics.

It's about the 30th Anniversary of Liberation 100 Won Commemorative Coin (KM-21), South Korea's very first locally-produced commemorative coin, and the country's very first coin to be made, from the beginning to the end of the minting process, entirely in South Korea.

The article highlights a delay that took place in the minting of this coin after the president of the Mint in South Korea attempted to elbow aside this coin in favor of a "memorial coin" for the Korean president's wife, who was killed in an assassination the year before.

I hope readers will enjoy it. ...And linked at the top of the page are my previous articles in the series.

Mark's article is interesting and well-researched, with a great deal of detailed information about the operations of the mint and its coin design process. Here are a few sample paragraphs. Be sure to read the complete version online, with many great illustrations and sidebar articles. -Editor

In the nine years from 1965 to 1974, the Korean Mint had gained progressively advanced capabilities in manufacturing coins, ranging from striking coins, to plaster cast engraving, to producing the working dies and pattern coins, among a myriad of other involved processes. By the early 1970s, the Dongnae factory was manufacturing coins with mintages in the hundreds of millions. With an eye towards establishing minting contracts with foreign governments, the Mint incorporated the English title, the “Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation” (Komsco) in 1971. Its first overseas contracts involved the printing of hundreds of millions of excise stamps for Thailand in May 1970, followed by the minting of 200 million Taiwanese 1 Yuan coins (Y-536) in February 1973.

It was around this time that the government had decided to construct an entirely new, up-to-date facility capable of conducting the full range of manufacturing processes required for a world-class mint operating at peak technical capacity. Construction for this new minting facility was completed on July 4, 1975 in Gyeongsan, near the city of Daegu, in the Southeast of the country. Prior to its official completion in July, the new factory had already begun banknote-printing operations in January.

The country’s coin-manufacturing operations officially transferred from the old Dongnae coin mint (which closed its doors) to the Gyeongsan mint on April 30th that year. With this new facility in place, Komsco aimed for complete self-sufficiency. It was with this objective that the government tasked Komsco with the minting of South Korea’s very first locally made commemorative coins almost as soon as new coin mint came online.