The Korean Won ( , ) or Korean Empire won (Korean: 대한제국 원), was the official currency of the Korean Empire between 1900 and 1910. It was subdivided into 100 jeon (; , ).
Etymology
Won is a cognate of the Chinese yuan and Japanese yen, which were both derived from the Spanish-American silver dollar. It is derived from the hanja (, won), meaning "round", which describes the shape of the silver dollar.
History
The Korean won, Chinese yuan and Japanese yen were all derived from the Spanish-American silver dollar, a coin widely used for international trade between Asia and the Americas from the 16th to 19th centuries.
On May 22, 1901 the Korean Empire adopted the gold standard in response to many other countries doing the same. The won was introduced in 1902, replacing the yang at a rate of 1 won = 10 yang. Units: 1 won = 100 jeon (錢), 1 jeon = 5 bun (分, "fun" ec. yesteryear spellings) of the preceding currency. Gold coins were produced in the denominations of 5, 10, and 20 won. All of these coins had a composition of 90% gold and 10% copper. Another notable feature of these coins is that they, unlike the earlier yang coinage, contained no English inscriptions as they only contained Chinese and Hangul legends.
As a part of the Russian influence in Korea at the time the Koreans introduced a small number of "Russified" coins between the years 1901 and 1902, but these coins would prove to be unsuccessful as they were swept away by the flood of cupronickel coins.
The disagreements between the Japanese and Russian Empires led to the Russo-Japanese War when Japan attacked Port Arthur in Russian Dalian and Incheon in Korea, the war ended in a Japanese victory, Japan occupied the Kwantung Leased Territory and the Korean peninsula. The Japanese immediately took control over Korean financial matters. On October 16, 1904 the Koreans accepted Baron Megata Tanetarō from the Japanese Ministry of Finance as financial adviser to their government, Megata was assigned to assume complete jurisdiction over Korea's finances. When Megata arrived in Korea, he told Sir John Newell Jordan, who was the British Minister-Resident in Korea at the time, that the Japanese protectorate over Korea was being modeled on British rule in Egypt. One of the first recommendations by Baron Megata was to close all Korean Mints and commence a reform of the Korean currency. One of the primary policy he proposed was removing the cupronickel coins from circulation.
After the Japanese had pressured the Korean Mint Bureau, which had been striking coins for 20 years, to close in November of the year 1904, all gold coins of the won were produced at the Japan Mint in Osaka (日本大阪造幣局). In 1905 the Japan Mint began to produce the Korean won's new coinage, this entirely new series was modeled almost exactly on the patterns of contemporary Japanese coins and even used the same planchets.
As the coins of the Korean won were being struck on the same planchets as the Japanese yen, when the Japanese would reduce the weight of the minor coinages of the yen in 1906, the weights and sizes of Korean coins were also reduced in 1907. This was also because the Japanese and Korean coins were circulating as equivalents to each other in exchange at the time.
In the year 1907 the imperial Korean government had designated the Japanese Dai-Ichi Bank to carry out the monetary reforms that were suggested by the Japanese adviser to Korea Baron Megata Tanetarō. The Dai-Ichi Bank attempted to withdraw the cupronickel coinage, recall the yeopjeon, and help circulate the newly introduced coinage that was minted in Osaka. During this era Korean cash coins were still largely circulating in the regions of southern and north-eastern Korea. The task of withdrawing the cupronickel coinage from circulation proved to not be an easy one because of the substantial number of counterfeit cupronickel coins that were circulating in Korea at the time, these counterfeit coins were redeemed by the Dai-Ichi Bank at reduced rates from the "official" cupronickel coins; during the exchange process, it was assumed by everybody that theirs cupronickel were "official" cupronickel coins and demanded the maximum exchange rate. The withdrawal of copper-alloy Korean cash coins was made easier due to a global rise in the price of copper, during this era thousands of pounds of copper-alloy Korean cash coins were exported at a profit.