1 Won

South Korea's shift to aluminium for this denomination came as the country's rapid industrialization under Park Chung-hee's export-driven economic model made the cost of base-metal coinage increasingly impractical. The won itself had been redenominated in 1962 at a rate of 10 hwan to 1 won, which meant this unit entered circulation already representing negligible purchasing power — a situation that only worsened across the fourteen-year run of this type.

By the early 1980s, a single won could buy virtually nothing, and the denomination was effectively abandoned in daily commerce well before its official discontinuation.