Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Mun;1 dot Tong Ho;heaven
| Issuer | Korea › Joseon (1392-1897) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1832 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Mun (1392-1892) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Central square hole surrounded by four Chinese characters arranged in cruciform fashion within the coin field. Reading top to bottom, the characters 常 and 平 form 'Sangpyeong,' the name of the Joseon Dynasty's Ever-Normal Office (Sangpyeong-cheong), responsible for price regulation and currency issuance. Reading right to left, the characters 通 and 寶 form 'Tongbo,' the standard term for circulating coinage. All four characters are rendered in traditional Chinese regular script (kaishu). The coin is cast with a plain outer rim and a central square perforation typical of East Asian cash coinage of the period. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | 常 寶 通 平 |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
The "heaven" designation (天, *cheon*) identifies this piece's casting location within the Joseon rotational mint system, under which the Board of Works and various military bureaus cycled production rights to prevent any single institution from monopolizing coin output. The Tong Ho furnace designation narrows it further to a specific casting series within that bureaucratic rotation — details that the KM reference alone obscures. By 1832, the *mun* coinage had been circulating for over 150 years largely unchanged, a monetary conservatism that itself reflects Joseon's deep institutional resistance to economic reform throughout the late Chosŏn period.