20 Won Liberation

Issued the year North Korea's famine — known internally as the "Arduous March" — was beginning to kill hundreds of thousands, this coin was produced entirely for hard-currency export sales, never intended to circulate domestically. The DPRK's foreign trade bank used commemorative silver issues through the 1990s as one of its few reliable mechanisms for earning convertible foreign exchange, a practice that accelerated sharply as Soviet aid collapsed after 1991.