1 Yang Yi Hyong

Korea's first domestically struck machine-made coinage, this issue emerged from the Incheon mint established in 1883 with Japanese technical assistance — a politically loaded arrangement given Japan's accelerating encroachment on the peninsula. The 1893 date places this piece in the final decade of the Joseon dynasty, as the court lurched between Chinese, Japanese, and Russian spheres of influence, each pressing competing monetary and administrative models onto Korean institutions.

The mint itself operated only intermittently, and early production runs were small.