1 Mun Ho, Earth

The mun was the standard cash coin of Joseon Korea, cast rather than struck — a production method that persisted long after neighboring China and Japan had begun experimenting with mechanical minting. KM#41 was issued under the authority of the Hojo, the Board of Revenue in Seoul, one of several government offices and military bureaus permitted to cast coinage during the mid-nineteenth century. The specific furnace office responsible can often be identified by reverse characters, detail that the KM number alone does not resolve.