50000 South Korean Won Banknote (2009 Issue)

50,000 Won (Issued 2009)

South Korea’s export-driven economy — encompassing electronics, shipbuilding, petrochemicals, and automotive manufacturing — generated enormous volumes of high-value transactions that the 50,000 Won note was introduced to facilitate when it entered circulation in 2009. As the highest-denomination banknote in the Korean Won series, it serves both everyday commerce and large-scale business transactions across one of Asia’s most dynamic and technologically advanced economies. The note’s introduction reflected the sustained growth in South Korean purchasing power and the practical demand for a note capable of representing significant sums in a compact and secure format. For travellers, businesses, and individuals holding Korean currency, this note represents the apex of the current circulating series.

On the front, the dominant figure is Shin Saimdang, the celebrated sixteenth-century Korean artist, poet, calligrapher, and mother of the Confucian scholar Yulgok Yi I, whose portrait appears in engraved detail to the right of centre. She is rendered in a three-quarter facing pose, dressed in traditional Korean hanbok, her expression composed and dignified, her hair arranged in the classical style of the Joseon period. The portrait engraving is executed with fine line work that captures tonal gradation across the face and fabric, set against a warm golden-yellow and ochre background that dominates the central and right portions of the note. To the left of the portrait, a richly detailed vignette depicts a section of Shin Saimdang’s own artwork — a naturalistic composition featuring grape vines, leaves, and clusters of fruit rendered in green, olive, and gold tones, evoking the style of traditional Korean minhwa folk painting. The denomination is printed prominently in Korean Hangul script as 오만원 in dark characters near the top centre, and numerically as 50000 in large bold figures on both the left and far right edges. The issuing authority 한국은행 (Bank of Korea) is printed in Korean script at the upper right, with 한국은행 총재 and a facsimile signature block appearing in the lower centre of the note alongside an official red seal impression. The serial number AF 0969586 H appears twice — once along the top edge and once along the lower right — printed in dark ink. A vertical security strip with colour-shifting properties is embedded towards the left side of the note, and an optically variable ink element in dark tones is visible to the lower right of the portrait area. The left margin carries a stack of repeated microprint numerals reading 50000 in a vertical band, and the overall paper has a crisp, pale cream base beneath the warm gold overprint.

The reverse presents a striking composition dominated by a detailed ink rendering of bare winter plum blossom branches — a motif drawn from the traditional East Asian artistic canon and associated with perseverance and renewal — rising from a gnarled and weathered trunk at the lower left, their fine twigs extending upward and across the centre of the note. The branches are depicted in dark olive and brown tones with exceptional line precision, evoking the brushwork style of classical Korean ink painting. Behind the branches, a large, softly rendered golden disc representing the sun or full moon sits in the upper left quadrant, surrounded by stylised bamboo leaves and what appears to be a textile or architectural background rendered in pale yellow and warm buff tones. The text Bank of Korea appears in green serif lettering along the left side, and the denomination 50000 is printed in large purple numerals in the upper right corner, with 50000 won repeated in green at the lower left in a smaller typeface. The issuing authority’s name in Korean appears vertically along the far right edge. The paper ground shows delicate guilloché patterning and fine background tints across the full surface, and a watermark window area is visible on the left margin, consistent with the security paper used throughout the Bank of Korea’s modern series.

If you have a South Korean 50,000 Won banknote to exchange, Webuyallcurrency.com takes it as part of its leftover currency service, combining your South Korean Won banknotes with other world coins and banknotes in one easy payout.

• Indicate the quantity of 50,000 Won Won banknotes you want to exchange
• Click the ‘Add to your account’ button
• Your online account now shows the exchange value

Whether you want to sell foreign coins and notes or exchange leftover currency from past trips, Webuyallcurrency.com accepts South Korean Won banknotes alongside modern money and settles everything in a single, easy transaction.

Other South Korean Won you can exchange: 0.1, 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 2000.