The Man who owns almost all South Korean Stamps!

This man owns almost each South Korean stamp and is very proud of his philatelic collection.

Since last month, the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) has been hosting an exhibition of 249 postage stamps from North Korea to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan.

One stamp, obviously issued by South Korea, read “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”, an official name of the North. During the 1950-53 Korean War, the North used South Korean postage stamps, unable to supply its own.

A stamp depicting Dokdo, a small islet that is the subject of a territory dispute between South Korea and Japan, bears the title, “Dokdo, an island of Joseon”. And two former South Korean presidents, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, who held summits with former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, can also be seen on stamps commemorating the meetings.

All of these stamps are owned by one person, Shin Dong-hyun, head of a regional branch of the Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corporation. The 56-year-old possesses nearly every North Korean postage stamp issued from 1946 to 2014, estimated to number about 6,500.