Korea Stamp Society

Last year on August 25, 2021, the author published an article on the Korea Stamp Society’s (KSS) webpage about Dr. Sherwood Hall’s woodblock print cards from 1934-1940, that were sold/given along with the Christmas/New Year’s and Tuberculosis (TB) seals. Since that time the author has been fortunate to find a complete set of the 7 […]

It should not come as a surprise that a specialized stamp society such as the KSS has among its membership quite a few highly specialized members. However, it does sometimes feel as if the KSS has more of those specialized members than quite a few other stamp societies. It is of course purely anecdotal, but […]

On 20 August, 2021, Korea Post celebrated the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Kim Taegŏn (金大建, 1821-1846), the first Korean Roman Catholic priest, and a martyr. He was a member of a yangban or aristocratic family who had converted secretly to Catholicism, which was banned and persecuted in Korea until the end of the […]

Gwendoline (은산-殷山) Post office was a simple postal branch which handled only postal matters of reception. Following are a few points regarding the office:

I have been collecting stamps from North Korea for about 30 years and I can say that the philately of this country has many secrets and mysteries. The main catalogs (Scott, Michel, and Stanley Gibbons (SG)) do not provide complete and reliable information. The catalog printed in the DPRK gives distorted price information. Yes, this […]

It seems like only yesterday when I first learned of the Society. As I began collecting, two older established dealers suggested I focus on collecting stamps of the group of countries often identified as “U.S. Possessions”. Bright and colourful, the cost of many of them in that era was perfect for a beginning but enthusiastic […]

One of our newest Korea Stamp Society members asked the Korea Stamp Society for information on how to tell the differences between South and North Korean stamps. As most of our articles on the KSS website are on specialized topics about Korean philately, we thought it would be good to write an article about identifying […]

Recently there was a very unusual amount of bidding on group of Korean Empire stamps on eBay that had around nine different bidders with the winning bid at $1200. This set of stamps was brought to the attention of the Korea Stamp Society (KSS) by a reader of the website with three days left in […]

The academic publishers Routledge has just published a new book edited by Prof. Stanley D. Brunn of the University of Kentucky on the subject of stamps as a source for documentary research on political trends, changes and transitions. Stanley Brunn, along with Jack Child and David Scott, has been among the leading Anglophone scholars to […]

The South Korean government has been promoting the digitization of archives for several decades now. This is great for stamp collectors, as highly detailed information on South Korean postal and revenue stamps has come to light thanks to the efforts of South Korean archives. If you can read/write (type) Korean, a lot of information can […]

Depending on the laws of a specific land which stamps to publish is decided upon in all sorts of ways. In some countries the government (usually through a ministry) decides what which stamps to issue, in other countries it is the postal authority or the postal services themselves. In Germany for instance the Ministry of […]

In early January 2021 the book “Buddhism on Stamps” was released by the Indian philatelist Mr. Lokeswara Rao (retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in Nagaland, India). He spared no efforts in creating his book, as not only does the book come with an introduction by the current Chief Postmaster General, the book also contains […]