A DPRK Reprint Variety

There is an irony in the fact that the reprint of, arguably, the rarest of all North Korean stamps, the 1948 Labor Law issue, SG N11, is among the most common of these often despised reprints, both in perforated and imperforated condition. It is also among the small number of such reprints of which postally used copies are not rare, although it is not clear if its original face value was respected; 50chon was a very small denomination in 1957. 

Here, I report a variety not previously noted, a retouch, presumably at one position on the plate. On the right hand stamp in Figure 1, the roof of the small building directly underneath the man’s raised arm has been redrawn with a wider spacing between the beams. The window in the gable of the building behind it is also distorted to some extent. Anyone with sheets of this issue may be able to pinpoint the location of this variety, although there is the possibility that it does not occur in all printings of the stamp.