20 Won Year of the Dog

North Korea's commemorative coinage program from the mid-2000s was produced almost entirely for export — these pieces were never intended to circulate domestically, where the won's exchange rate was tightly controlled and foreign-facing numismatic issues would have been economically incoherent alongside actual wages. The State Mint contracted with European distributors to sell them directly into the collector market, generating hard currency the regime could not otherwise access.