400 Won 50th Anniversary of Liberation - Lake on Mount Baektu

Issued to mark the 50th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, this piece appeared during one of the most acute crises in North Korean history — the mid-1990s famine that killed an estimated several hundred thousand to over a million people while the state simultaneously produced gold commemoratives for the international collector market. Hard currency from foreign coin sales was a meaningful revenue stream for Pyongyang throughout this period.

Mount Baektu holds particular ideological weight in the DPRK's founding mythology, promoted as the birthplace of Kim Jong-il.