2 Mun Yong

The 2 Mun Sangpyong Tongbo was authorized under King Sukjong in 1678 as part of a deliberate push to monetize the Korean economy, which had operated largely on barter and bolt-cloth exchange for centuries. What followed was one of the more chaotic currency rollouts in East Asian monetary history — dozens of government offices, military bureaus, and provincial authorities were each granted minting rights, resulting in an enormous proliferation of mint marks and a coin whose quality varied wildly depending on who cast it.

KM#288 spans minting across multiple reigns through 1752. The back mint marks remain the primary tool for attributing individual pieces to specific issuing bureaus.