10 Won Korean Folk II - Seesawing

North Korea's hard currency commemorative program, active from the 1970s onward, was designed almost entirely for export — these pieces were never intended to circulate domestically and were sold through foreign dealers and diplomatic channels to generate convertible currency for the state. The Folk Series sits within that framework, targeting collectors in Japan, Germany, and elsewhere with scenes of traditional Korean culture that the regime simultaneously promoted as proof of national distinctiveness.

KM#112.1 denotes the first of two documented variants; a .925 composition issue was struck alongside this .999 example, distinguished in the catalog by the suffix.