North Korean bank notes are hot items in Japan and are traded at high value.

Japanese collectors are keen on a 200-won bill believed to have been issued around Kim Jong-il's birthday on February 16th.

Going for over 15 hundred yen each, the bank note has a printed design of the North's national flower magnolia instead of the usual portraits of Kim or his late father Kim Il-sung.

With 200 North Korean won worth almost four U-S dollars, the bill is traded at four times its face value.

A set of all nine bank notes from the North can fetch five thousand yen.