1 Won

These notes were printed in the Soviet Union before the Red Army crossed into Korea in August 1945, part of a suite of military occupation currency (1 Won through 100 Won) introduced to give Soviet troops a means of acquiring goods without drawing directly on Korean Bank notes. The issuing authority was the Red Army command itself, not any Korean financial institution — a deliberate arrangement that kept Soviet military expenditure formally separate from the existing colonial currency infrastructure left by Japan.

The print date of 30 April 1945 places production squarely in the final days of the European war, months before Korea was even a theatre of operations.