Catalog
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| Issuer | Bank of Korea |
|---|---|
| Year | 1966-1975 |
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| Size | 156 × 66 mm |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette to the left shows Namdaemun (Sungnyemun), the South Gate of Seoul, rendered in fine intaglio engraving with its surrounding plaza and stonework. To the right, a large multicoloured guilloche rosette underprint frames the Korean denomination 오백원 in bold intaglio lettering, with the Bank of Korea seal in red below. The note is framed by elaborate scrollwork borders with denomination numerals 500 and hangul characters in the corners. |
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| Obverse lettering | 한국은행권 오백원 한국은행 한국조폐공사 제조 (Translation: Bank of Korea note / Five Hundred Won / Bank of Korea / Manufactured by Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation) |
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| Comments |
South Korea's early won series of the 1960s was printed domestically at a time when many developing economies still sent their security printing abroad. The Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation handling this 500 Won issue was a deliberate policy choice — the Park Chung-hee government treated self-sufficient currency production as an industrial and security priority, part of the same logic driving the Five-Year Plans.
A print run of just over 12 million across a nine-year window is modest, and attrition from circulation in a rapidly industrializing economy was high. Fine or better examples are harder to source than the numbers suggest.