20 Won Blue Dragon

North Korea's commemorative coinage program from the mid-2000s was produced almost exclusively for the foreign collector market, with negligible domestic circulation — brass pieces of this weight and diameter were never intended to pass through the hands of ordinary citizens in Pyongyang. The Central Bank issued dozens of themed collector coins during this period, many through intermediary dealers in China and Europe, a distribution arrangement that suited both parties given the sanctions environment.

KM#633 is one of several issues from this run referencing traditional Korean mythological imagery, drawing on iconographic traditions predating the peninsula's division.