20 Won Arirang Dancers

North Korea has issued collector coinage through foreign minting intermediaries since the 1970s, largely as a hard-currency generation scheme targeting overseas collectors rather than domestic circulation. These pieces never entered use inside the DPRK, where the won operated under a dual-currency system that kept foreign-denominated goods entirely out of reach for ordinary citizens.

The Arirang Festival, inaugurated in 2002, was the state event these coins nominally commemorate — a mass gymnastics and performance spectacle held in Pyongyang's Rungrado May Day Stadium, drawing on choreographed participation from tens of thousands.