Could There Really Be Another One In Existence? Part II Of II

Continuing on from the post on Friday…

Cong fought in many battles in Laos and Cambodia and served in the military until 1973. During his battles, Cong was comforted by the stamps he was collecting from the battle field. He carried his collection in a nylon bag in his pocket. He was known for picking up stray envelopes from fallen soldiers who were both friend and foe. His commanders even gave him permission to take stamps from the enemy’s documents.

After Cong returned home in 1975, he was saddened to find that his remaining family members had lost his original stamp collection which had contained stamps from 147 countries. Being an avid collector, he began his collection again from the stamps he had collected in battle.

Cong currently has thousands of stamps in his collection. Most are Vietnamese stamps and many were issued during the war. In Cong’s current collection there is one orange stamp with an image of Queen Victoria and a price of 1 penny. Along the side it says “Post Office” and along the other it says “Mauritius”. Cong says that he was given the stamp in 1951 or 1952 while on business in Cambodia. He believes that this stamp is another very rare example of one of the first postage stamps ever produced. Experts have yet to confirm or deny his claim, but if it is the stamp he claims, it surely is the find of a lifetime.