2023-07-12 05:11:02
Recently, a ‘Kim Il-sung watch’ was put up for sale on a used goods trading site. It is an Omega Geneve Automatic from Swatch Group, a Swiss luxury watch brand with the name of Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, engraved on the disc (index). A watch engraved with Kim Il-sung’s name is also called a ‘name watch’ or ‘business card watch’ in North Korea. The price has been set at 3.5 million won, and the deal is expected to be concluded soon.
On the 7th, ‘Kim Il-sung’s watch’ was posted on ‘Junggonara’, a used goods trading site. /Joonggonara
According to Secondhand Nara on the 12th, a second-hand ‘Kim Il-sung watch’ was posted on this community on the 5th. Seller A said, “It is an ultra-rare watch that watch collectors are eyeing.” This item is regarding to close a deal in a week following it was uploaded. Mr. A said, “There is someone who has actually seen the product and expressed his intention to buy it, so I think the transaction will be completed around next week.”
Mr. A explained that he obtained this item 10 years ago through a member of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), a pro-North Korea group in Japan. He said that he had several versions of the ‘Johnham Watch’ besides the one he put up for sale this time. Under the inscription ‘Kim Il-sung’ written in red letters, ‘1972. He said that from the ‘Kim Il-sung 60th birthday commemorative’ watch with the date ‘4.
A watch made to commemorate the 60th birthday of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung on April 15, 1972. /provided by A
This is not the first time that ‘Kim Il-sung watches’ have been put up for sale. In March 2017, the ‘Kim Il-sung watch’, which was produced on September 4, 1978, was put up for sale on eBay, a global online auction site, and traded at 5,495 dollars, or 7.08 million won in our money. Trading in Kim Il-sung’s gifts is illegal in North Korea. Because of this, it is said that at the time, North Korea dispatched an agent from the State Security Agency to Budapest, Hungary, where the watch was delivered, to find out the truth.
Kim Il-sung conducted so-called ‘gift politics’ as a means to maintain the system by inducing competition for loyalty among North Korean residents and officials. ‘Jonham Watch’ is one of them. According to an article written by North Korean defector Kim Joo-won to Radio Free Asia (RFA) in April 2017, the North Korean authorities asked regarding the meaning of the watch gift, saying that Kim Il-sung, who was active as an anti-Japanese partisan during the Japanese colonial period, gave his subordinate a watch. Explain that it originated from the promise of friendship while giving it.
‘Jonham watches’ are divided into ‘grades’ depending on the brand and material. It is said that high-ranking officials were provided with Rolex or Omega gold watches engraved with Kim Il-sung’s name, while lower party officials and residents were provided with regular Omega watches, and sometimes watches made by Japan’s Seiko. During the Kim Il-sung era, there were mainly Omega watches, and it is said that the role of Rolex increased during the Kim Jong-il era. Mr. Kim Joo-won explained, “With the ‘business card clock’ politics that has been going on since 1972, there are tens of thousands of people who have received gifts so far.”
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