DescriptionKorea thought of itself as a Chinese vassal state since the 10th century. It maintained a closed to foreigners policy through the 19th century, a policy that China was unable practice. When China started trying to modernize in the late 19th century Korea tried as well. Japan, however, saw Korea as low hanging fruit for the formation of an empire, which is what the “big countries” were doing at the time. It was a Japanese colony until 1945, at which time the occupying powers in the north and south set up separate governments that became the two countries we have today.The big player in East Asia is China, of course. Then there is Japan and Korea, throw in Mongolia. South of China and east of India, but not including, for the most part, the islands to the east, is what we call Southeast Asia. From Burma to Malaya there have been a series of local kingdoms for about 2000 years. Russia, with its Asian Siberia, doesn’t count. We consider it part of Europe.By “Modern World Coins” we mean here, generally, the round, flat, shiny metal objects that people have used for money and still do. “Modern,” though, varies by location. There was some other way they were doing their economies, and then they switched over to “modern coins,” then they went toward paper money, now we’re all going toward digital, a future in which kids look at a coin and say “What’s that?” We’ll say: “We used to use those to buy things.” Kids will ask “How?” The main catalog reference is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, to which the KM numbers refer.
