10 Won Gwang Mu - Russian Occupation

In 1896, following the assassination of Queen Min and fearing Japanese consolidation of power, King Gojong took refuge in the Russian legation in Seoul for over a year — an episode known as the Agwan Pacheon. Russian influence over Korean affairs peaked in the years immediately after, and pattern coinage produced under that influence reflected the competing foreign pressures on the Korean mint. KM#Pn34 is a pattern, not a circulation strike, making survivors genuinely rare.

The Gwang Mu era designation dates from Gojong's 1897 proclamation of the Korean Empire — a deliberate assertion of independence from the Chinese tributary system, issued just as Japanese and Russian interests were already carving up that independence in practice.