20 won Balaena Mysticetus

Issued by the DPRK during a period when North Korea was actively cultivating a niche foreign-currency collector market, this piece was never intended for domestic circulation. Pyongyang's Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation produced themed wildlife series throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s specifically to generate hard currency from overseas collectors and dealers, particularly through intermediaries in China and Germany.

The bowhead whale — Balaena mysticetus — inhabits Arctic and subarctic waters, placing it well outside Korean territorial seas. Its appearance here is a collector-market calculation, not a statement of natural heritage.