North Korea has produced collector-oriented brass issues for the foreign currency market since the 1970s, primarily to generate hard currency revenue — a program that accelerated sharply after the collapse of Soviet subsidies in the early 1990s left Pyongyang chronically short of foreign exchange. These pieces were never intended for domestic circulation and would not have been accessible to ordinary North Korean citizens under the country's rigid economic stratification.
North Korea has produced collector-oriented brass issues for the foreign currency market since the 1970s, primarily to generate hard currency revenue — a program that accelerated sharply after the collapse of Soviet subsidies in the early 1990s left Pyongyang chronically short of foreign exchange. These pieces were never intended for domestic circulation and would not have been accessible to ordinary North Korean citizens under the country's rigid economic stratification.