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NORTH KOREA'S KIM JONG-SUK GOLD COINDick Hanscom and Arthur Shippee forwarded this BBC News article about a new gold coin mints by North Korea honoring the grandmother of the sabre-rattling Kim Jong-Un, Kim
Jong-Suk. Thanks. -Editor
 The birth centenary of "war heroine" Kim Jong-suk is currently being celebrated in a big way there. Kim is no ordinary woman though, but the first wife of North Korea's founding leader Kim Il-sung and the grandmother of current leader Kim Jong-un. She is believed to have been born to a poor farming family on Christmas Eve in 1917, and is said to have fought with guerrilla forces against the Japanese in the 1930s. She died in 1949, aged just 31, and official accounts ascribe her death to the hardships she endured as a guerrilla fighter. To mark her birth centenary, North Korean media have been describing her wartime exploits in typically hyperbolic language. Kim is not just an "outstanding woman revolutionary" and "the sacred mother of the revolution", "her marksmanship was so marvellous that even her comrades-in-arms used to guess the number of killed enemies by counting empty bullet pockets of her cartridge belt after battles," says a report in the state-run KCNA news agency. North Korea says it has released new postage stamps, minted new gold and silver coins, and held cultural performances in her honour. Dead relatives aren't a threat to the current ruler, so they can be feted for propaganda purposes and ascribed magical powers. Had his grandmother been still alive, she'd
probably have been on the same hitlist as Kim Jong-Un's uncle and half-brother. Sorry, granny - it's just business. -Editor
To read the complete article, see: Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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