Unlisted Korea 1898 1/4 yang variety?

[gxseries]

I just received this recently:



This is not something that I have seen before or even read before in any Korean coin catalog. This is a common 1/4 yang:



I don't think it's a counterfeit. This coin weighs 4.67g. What are your opinions on this?

[translateltd]

The blurred four in "1/4" and the fact that the letters in YANG are out of alignment make me think it's a modern forgery.

[weepio]

Somehow the coin doesn't feel right to me. The word Yang is not aligned in the right way and also the reverse should be worn differently.
I hope I'm wrong.

[Afrasi]

Also the dragon is not in the right position and has to be turned to fit a genuine coin.

[gxseries]

Afrasi, the rotation of the dragon shouldn't matter as a lot of the coins were never aligned right in the first place. I have a rather reasonable collection of Korean coins of this era and this can be seen at omnicoin.com

It was actually common in the earlier years that the fonts were of different sizes such as 1896 5 fun and 1898 5 fun (3 different font varities!)

[natko]

Afrasi meant rotation of the dragon relative to inscription around. Misaligned coin is not very uncommon as you said. Dragon in the upper coin is smaller, letters are clumsy, up and down. It's suspicious to me as well, but true weight is weird also.

If it's a genuine piece it might be from some smaller mint, struck in lack of small change. Just a theory though.

[gxseries]

Natko, I'm dead certain the misalignment was quite common back then. I have at least 40 coins of this era which you can view at omnicoin.com at this link: http://www.omnicoin.com/collection/gxseries?page=1&sort=year&sale=0&country=10073 Unless you have 100s of example that doesn't support this theory, please let me know. I will have to assume I bought a massive bunch of counterfeits in this case.

All of the photographs were taken carefully as I noticed the rotation was slightly off for some coins. It was only after 1905 that coin alignment became standardized from my observation.

I have missed an auction that sold a similar coin: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1898-Yr-2-Korea-1-4-Yang-VF-dirty-/180786497050?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a17b7061a

[capnbirdseye]

Compare it to mine posted on here a while back, like 99.9% of my coins it was purchased in the 1960's not likely to be a forgery etc.

I just had a look at the die rotation & it's completely opposite, in other words when I turn the coin horizontally it becomes upside down, if I flip it over vertically then each side is the right way up

http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,11708.0.html



weight 4.78g

[Afrasi]

Dear gxseries!

You asked for opinions. I gave you mine.
Natko was so friendly to say it more concrete, what I mean. It has nothing to do with coin/medal alignment.
Also I have some Korean coins in my collection, too, including the genuine coin and the Japanese fake of this type.
I still believe this to be an interesting contemporary fake, which I would put in my collection, too.

[gxseries]

The alignment for this coin should be a coin alignment instead of a medal alignment, i.e. similar to the alignment US coins are struck.

With regards to the smaller dragon, smaller dragons were used on previous years such as this example



I'll send an email off to a collector who knows a lot about Korean coins. He owns the illusionary 1899 5 fun coin so he would know better.

[Afrasi]

I'll send an email off to a collector who knows a lot about Korean coins. He owns the illusionary 1899 5 fun coin so he would know better.

Yes, please, do so! 

But a last time: What I said above has really NOTHING !!! to do with coin or medal alignment.

[andyg]

What Afrasi I think is trying to explain is that the dragon on the coin on the bottom aligns with the dot at the end of "¼ YANG", whereas on the the top coin the dragon aligns with the "N" in "YANG" - so the dragon pictured in the middle of the coin does not align with the writing around the edge (on the same side) in the same fasion on both coins.

I drew some lines on your pictures as example.
(I will of course remove the pictures from this post if you do so wish)

[gxseries]

Afrasi, I'm afraid I have trouble understanding what you are trying to explain.

Andyg, the alignment and design of the currently discussed 1/4 yang seems similar to the earlier 1/4 yang designs.

Now that I remember, this is an extract from a collector that mentioned about the 1898 1/4 yang a few years ago. Had to search for it.

===

Regarding the die alignment issue, there are a number of small varieties in the coins issued through 1902, including obverse-reverse alignment. A friend of mine has a 1/4 yang with an additional leaf on the obverse. If you want to collect varieties of an inexpensive date, I suggest the 1898 1/4 yang. I have at least seven varieties of that piece that include large and small characters on the reverse, large and small circles around the dragon, the dragons in different orientations, and different sizes and alignment of the denomination within the wreath on the obverse. I'm pretty sure that no one has even begun to catalog all the different varieties of this coin.

===

[capnbirdseye]

Here is mine, 1897 an undoubted genuine coin bought 1965

[Dany Kim]

There are several varieties in 1898 1/4 yang but can be devided by two categories.

KM#1117 (lower one) : Dragon crowded by small tight cicle (dots of 62~70)

KM#1118 (upper one) : Dragon crowded by larger circle (dots of around 80)
1118 were counterfeits made on machinery supplied by the Japanese. These counterfeits were authorized for circulation by the Korean Government.

KM#1117(1898) have several sub-varieties and most of them were counterfeits made by private sectors.  Only one type having the same design with other 1/4 yang (1897, 1899~1904) is made by the Korean Government.