500 Won

North Korea's domestic currency system has long operated in parallel with a separate "won" denominated in foreign exchange certificates — a distinction that matters here. By 2018, the DPRK had been issuing progressively higher denominations as chronic inflationary pressure following the catastrophic 2009 currency redenomination continued to erode purchasing power. That redenomination, which slashed two zeros from all existing notes and capped household exchanges at 100,000 won, wiped out private savings overnight and remains one of the most disruptive monetary events in modern Korean history.

The Pick reference CS WC21 places this within a collector series rather than standard circulation issue — North Korean notes reaching Western catalogs almost always arrive through third-country intermediaries, most commonly via China.