Issued to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Rodong Sinmun, the Korean Workers' Party newspaper founded in 1945, this piece belongs to a pattern of commemorative brass issues the Central Bank has produced almost exclusively for export — they circulate in catalogs and collector markets outside the DPRK far more reliably than within it. Hard currency acquisition through numismatic sales has been a documented revenue stream for Pyongyang since at least the 1970s.
Issued to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Rodong Sinmun, the Korean Workers' Party newspaper founded in 1945, this piece belongs to a pattern of commemorative brass issues the Central Bank has produced almost exclusively for export — they circulate in catalogs and collector markets outside the DPRK far more reliably than within it. Hard currency acquisition through numismatic sales has been a documented revenue stream for Pyongyang since at least the 1970s.