10 Won

North Korea's 1959 currency reform was a straightforward redenomination — old won exchanged for new at 100:1 — but the political logic behind it was as much about breaking the accumulated savings of politically suspect classes as it was about monetary stabilization. The exchange was capped and tightly controlled, effectively wiping out holdings above the permitted threshold.

The P#15 series was printed with Soviet technical assistance, and the notes share production characteristics with contemporaneous Eastern Bloc issues. Specimens with the "SPECIMEN" perforation are more frequently encountered in Western collections than circulated examples, which rarely left the country.