New Article on South Korean Coins

[Verify-12]

I added a new article to my series of articles about South Korean Coins

This one is about the 30th Anniversary of Liberation commemorative coin, released in 1975.

http://www.dokdo-research.com/thirtyanniversary.html

Hope some of you here can enjoy it at some level.  I've received very good, constructive feedback at this forum in the past, so let me know what you think, if you like.

Cheers.

[<k>]

A well-researched article that touches areas I would never even have thought of. You relate how President Park Chung-hee operated his policy of directed industrialisation alongside his stiflingly oppressive rule, and how even the then relatively young South Korean Mint had much to learn in a period of a few short years. Astonishingly, the South Koreans had no concept of a commemorative coin, and you deal with how this fact was handled. Then again, it was to be a circulating commemorative, and a high denomination coin at that, higher than that of the existing circulation coins, and this at a time of rapid inflation, and you discuss those factors too.

After World War 2, South Korea was an impoverished agrarian country, but Park's policies laid the basis for the techno-industrial powerhouse we see today. It would have been useful to read a brief comparison with the development of North Korea. Astonishingly, for some years after 1950, North Korea surged ahead of South Korea, due to its neo-Stalinist policy of rapid industrialisation. Unlike South Korea, however, North Korea was unable to maintain that pace and has now fallen far behind.

My only other criticism centres on the fact that much of the text is in a very large font. For a long article, I found this very off-putting, therefore I copied whole chunks into a Word document and changed the font size from 18 to 12, to make it more readable.

All in all an excellent article, though. When and how did your interest in Korean coins start? I'm also curious about your nationality.

[Figleaf]

It is easy to over-estimate Park's contribution to South Korea's industrialisation. In fact, from the thrust of his industrial policy, it is clear that his aim was to build up a war industry, which explains his interests for concrete and steel (POSCO is Park's inheritance). He was just following Japan's pre second world war example. However, South Korea is too small to be another Japan, but it is large and vibrant enough to be a successful trading nation.The real economic driver of South Korea's success was not internal but external: foreign trade, especially with the US but also with Japan multiplied in the aftermath of the Korean war, as the US economy recovered from two huge war efforts.

North Korea had traditionally been the developed part of the peninsula. I forgot the exact numbers, but impressive shares of the Korean industry and engineers were located in the North. This advantage was efficiently driven into the ground by a succession of Stalinist, Maoist and Kim-ist policies that were in fact not too far removed from early Park industrial policy: development of concrete and steel production and reliance on the big ally for financing.

Park got murdered, the US economy had golden times until Vietnam. By contrast, the disastrous Kim dynasty stayed on and the Stalinist and Maoist economies tanked.

Peter

[Verify-12]

Thanks for your replies.  I really honor the opinions of the people at this forum, so I thank you for your efforts in responding.  I always learn something when I come here, which is why I keep coming back.

About the font:  I like the larger font, as I have a larger-size computer monitor, so it looks good (to me!).  However, I did reduce the size of the font one "html size" smaller.   Please let me know what you think of it now.   The problem is that I make everything big:  The font and the sidebars and the charts.  I may have to resize those, too.   

I was born and raised in Minnesota, USA, (of European ancestry) and I worked in Korea years ago for a Korean company, which started my interest in Korean coins.  When I started to become just barely literate enough in Korean, I began to enjoy exploring Korean topics and to write about them, and when I seriously got into coins, I noticed that there was very little information on contemporary numismatics, especially in the English language.  I also found some very good sources of information, particularly from a former currency designer who worked at Komsco during its vital growth period.  If he hadn't published his books that contain little memoirs, all of that history and those stories would have been lost, as nobody else in Korea (least of all Komsco!) bothered to produce histories in-depth on the Mint and its development.  They especially would never have related the more interesting episodes, such as the "memorial coin" incident.

Thanks again for your interest!

[<k>]

Thanks for the background.   

You've reduced the font for the section entitled "South Korea in 1975", so that makes it easier to read from my point of view, but a lot of the text is still at size 18, which really should just be used as a headline font. The larger the font, the less my eyes can take in at a glance. That how it works for me - I don't know about others.

[GSDykes]

Good to see you here, you always add to wherever you appear.
GSDykes - new member

[Verify-12]

Good to see you here, you always add to wherever you appear.
GSDykes - new member

Welcome to World of Coins, GS.  Hopefully you can add to THIS particular section (Japan, North and South Korea), as it has gets so little love from the more frequent posters...

[Figleaf]

The love is there, the material isn't always there, as well as not always on this board. WoC is what its members make of it. Our members range from absolute beginners to accomplished authors and everything in-between. There's no need to stay on the surface or go very deep only. Your contributions on all levels are welcome. Why not try to inspire more people to look at this collecting area?

Peter

[canadacoin]

I added a new article to my series of articles about South Korean Coins

This one is about the 30th Anniversary of Liberation commemorative coin, released in 1975.

http://www.dokdo-research.com/thirtyanniversary.html

Hope some of you here can enjoy it at some level.  I've received very good, constructive feedback at this forum in the past, so let me know what you think, if you like.

Cheers.

Great article. One comment regarding the image of the Medal with Stalin. The image you posted is an inverted image (mirror image) of the medal (basically image of the medal die rather than image itself)

[Verify-12]

Yes, thanks for noticing!   I did that on purpose, actually.  The Cyrillic writing on that medal is backwards because I reversed the entire thing so that the image of Stalin would face president Park, instead of having both images of the men face left.  I thought that would have looked weird, but now those who know Russian will see that the writing is weird!

Cheers.
-Mark