500 Won Crane

North Korea's early commemorative silver program, launched in the late 1980s, was aimed almost entirely at foreign collectors and currency dealers — hard currency the regime desperately needed as Soviet subsidies began collapsing. These coins were never intended to circulate domestically and most reached the market through Pyongyang's state-run Korea Daesong Bank trading arm. The 1990 date places this issue squarely in the period just before the Soviet dissolution, when hard currency acquisition became acute.