1 Won Giant Panda

North Korea issued a handful of aluminum wildlife pieces in the early 2000s ostensibly as collectibles for the international numismatic market — hard currency the regime needed badly under sanctions pressure following the collapse of Soviet aid in the 1990s. These were never intended for domestic circulation; the won had effectively ceased to function as a reliable medium of exchange for ordinary North Koreans long before this was struck.

The duplicate KM references suggest this type was catalogued separately by different researchers before attribution was consolidated — a common problem with DPRK issues, where export intermediaries in China and Eastern Europe muddied provenance records.