I had a pretty rough year and have been sorting out what I have in my collection to get rid of the duplicates. I am cleaning out my Korean coin album and found this rather rare coin that I didn't get around to catalog.
I remember fighting a bitter war to complete this set and it was well worth it. Struck in Osaka Mint, this particular coin is definitely uncommon and I have only seen it appear on major auctions perhaps once a year if not less. Korean and Japanese catalog do not mention a mintage figure however Krause reckons about 5 million were minted. I think that the survival rate for this coin is lot lower than what many think. In fact, I found it is harder to find compared to the lowest mintage coin of this series 1907 1/2 chon which was estimated at 800,000. While the coin may not be in the best condition, it stands a good chance for conservation. Even harshly cleaned coin are hard to come by. That's assuming if you can even come across one for starters.
There's one available at Stack's and it's going for a fair amount.
http://www.stacksbowers.com/browsea...48&Lot=30066Needless to say, let's see some photos:
1906 1/2 chon

1907 1/2 chon

1908 1/2 chon

1909 1/2 chon

1910 1/2 chon

Hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to post any of these Korean coins. I'll get around to photoshop them to show them along side by side.