1 Won 3000 Years of Korean History

Issued in 2001 as part of North Korea's ongoing program of commemorative brass pieces aimed squarely at the foreign collector market, this coin had no realistic circulation life — DPRK hard-currency shops sold these directly to tourists and diplomats for foreign exchange. The "3000 Years of Korean History" theme reflects Pyongyang's political investment in a unified Korean historical narrative, one the regime has used since the 1990s to assert cultural primacy over Seoul.