5 Won SS Grossherzogin Elisabeth

The SS Grossherzogin Elisabeth was a German training ship launched in 1901, used by the Imperial German Navy to train naval cadets until it was seized by the United States in 1917 following America's entry into World War I. North Korea's decision to issue commemoratives honoring historic European vessels has less to do with maritime heritage than with hard currency — these pieces were minted explicitly for the foreign collector market, a revenue stream Pyongyang developed aggressively through the 1990s as the economy collapsed following Soviet aid cutoffs.