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"Gangchol Brand" expansion watch band on retail card (North Korea)
Object/Artifact
An unused (new-old-stock) silver-tone expansion (stretch) watch band mounted on its original printed retail display card. The band is the linked-block stretch type — rows of small rectangular steel links over internal springs — held across a blue-and-pink card by a wire clip. The card is printed in Korean and English: a pink panel at the left reads "시계줄" (sigyejul, "watch band/strap") with a hexagonal logo and Korean text; the blue field reads "Watch Band," "MADE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA," and "GANGCHOL BRAND." The card is worn, edge-torn, and foxed; the band is bright with light tarnish.
2025.1.92
Kept by Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez
The Cabrera Arús family collection
Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez collecition
2025.1
Gangchol Brand
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Asia
MAKER: "Gangchol Brand" (강철, gangchol = "steel"), a North Korean (DPRK) manufacturer; the card states manufacture in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The specific factory is not further identified. DATE / PERIOD: Not dated; 20th century, DPRK. The card style and product type suggest a mid-to-late twentieth-century date. ORIGIN: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), per the card.
Card (Korean and English): "시계줄"; "Watch Band"; "MADE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA"; "GANGCHOL BRAND"; a hexagonal logo with Korean characters. Languages: Korean and English.
MATERIALS: Band: steel links (silver-tone/chrome finish) with internal expansion springs and end connectors. Card: printed paper/card (blue, pink, white inks); metal wire retaining clip. TECHNIQUES: Manufactured expansion bracelet (spring-linked stamped steel links); mounted on a lithographically printed retail display card with a wire clip. Unused retail stock.
Fair
Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez
owner
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
preservation
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Asia
production
This is an unused expansion watch band on its original North Korean retail card — an uncommon and historically interesting consumer-goods origin. The card identifies the product as "Gangchol Brand" (강철, "steel") and states manufacture in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea); the bilingual Korean/English card indicates a product made for export or for sale in contexts where English labeling was used. North Korean manufactured consumer goods are comparatively rarely seen in family holdings outside Asia, and the presence of one in this material most plausibly reflects socialist-bloc trade: during the Cold War the DPRK had trade and solidarity ties with other socialist states, and Cuba — itself within that bloc — received goods from a range of socialist countries, which is the likeliest route by which a North Korean watch band reached a Cuban household. That is contextual reasoning, not documented provenance for this specific item, and is offered as the probable explanation rather than an established fact.