As some readers of the KSS website know, I have not been interested in most North Korean (DPR) stamp issues. However, the peace talks between South Korea and North Korea, and the even more recent nuclear talks between North Korea and the USA, have caused some worldwide interest in philatelic material commemorating these talks. I have been looking at some of the new issues of “North Korea” that have been listed on eBay and Delcampe. Most of these new peace talks stamps, souvenir sheets and covers, purportedly from the DPR are listed by sellers out of China and Russia.
I purchased a few of these as more of a curiosity than for actually collecting them, as I wondered if some or all of these stamps/souvenir sheets/covers are fake issues? Were any of these legitimate issues authorized by the North Korea government? I am hoping that our members who are collectors of the DPR can tell us the origins of these stamps.
I can guess that the North Korean stamp in the top image is a fake that someone has made, but it is difficult to prove it.
The only way to deal with this situation is to collect information about stamps on the information website operated by a North Korean government agency…
The postmark on the FDCs above are differ from the KSC covers. One, the absence of the Juche year (108). Two, the Gregorian calendar date differs. Three, the absence of Korean text in one of the FDC postmarks.
FDCs (Above): Day/Month/Year
KSC FDCs: Juche Year (Gregorian Year) Month Day
The first set of SS has 전 before the number denomination and 전 is lying sideways. I believe that sometime after 2002, the DPRK stopped printing 전 and moved on to the 원 valuation. So, the top set does not show any consistency with DPRK stamp printing practices.
David’s point about the dating system is important: the Western standard is to end with the year (for instance 10.01.2019), but Korean style is to go from large to small, from year to day, as in 2018.06.12. The fake sheets do use the correct order of the date as “2018년 6월 12일” in the last FDC, but everywhere else the (Russian? Ukrainian?) creator creates the wrong (Western style) dates.
So, the dating (style) is wrong, the Juche year counting is missing and the coinage (as Yong Yi mentions) is wrong. The only bad thing about all of this is: if the creator of these sheets ever discovers this page next time he won’t make such mistakes…
(I heard) The above sheets are extremely poorly made fakes from Ukraine (or Russia).
1. Modern DPRK stamps have issuance years, the fakes did not.
2. Modern DPRK currency sign is “won”, the fakes use something like “cheon” but mis-spelled.
3. The sheet is for DPRK- US Vietnam Summit, but the Korean words were 한 – 중, which means (South)Korea – China !
How ridiculous!
Perhaps another clue is the statement on the stamp sheet, “two countries, one people”? Unification of Korea is a key objective of the DPRK’s foreign policy. The statement on the stamp sheet is at odds with the policy. It is also at odds with genuine KSC philatelic issues, which have consistently expressed subtle and unsubtle support for unification.
Thanks to everyone that made comments on my question about the DPRK’s fakes, the answers were very educational.
For the fake sheet of 4 North and South Korea talks, according to current DPRK’s policy, national flag of South Korea should not appear on the image. KOREA IS ONE.
It seems there is another fake sheet of 9 stamps, please pay attention to it and don’t be fooled.
Recently I found a PDF showing a few examples of fake DPRK stamps which apparently showed up in 2016 in Taiwan. The presentation titled “Prohibited stamps at FIP exhibitions Illegal and abusive issues in philately” was made by Richard Gratton. Here is one sheet from the presentation:
The complete PDF can be found online.
Bogus, fake stamp.