The "Yong, Depart" designation refers to a specific furnace and batch classification within the Joseon treasury minting system, where individual government offices and military bureaus operated their own casting furnaces — each producing coins traceable by the reverse inscription to their issuing department. This particular piece comes from a minting expansion ordered in the 1740s to address chronic coin shortages in the northern provinces, where barter had stubbornly persisted despite decades of official policy pushing cash circulation.
Joseon cash coinage of this period was cast rather than struck, making die variety analysis less applicable than sand-mold batch identification.
The "Yong, Depart" designation refers to a specific furnace and batch classification within the Joseon treasury minting system, where individual government offices and military bureaus operated their own casting furnaces — each producing coins traceable by the reverse inscription to their issuing department. This particular piece comes from a minting expansion ordered in the 1740s to address chronic coin shortages in the northern provinces, where barter had stubbornly persisted despite decades of official policy pushing cash circulation.
Joseon cash coinage of this period was cast rather than struck, making die variety analysis less applicable than sand-mold batch identification.