Korea Stamp Society

One of the most interesting types of (philatelic) articles are in my opinion the ones which have a personal connection. Take for instance the KSS members who used to work in Korea in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time they wrote quite a few articles on the philatelic situation on the ground, which has […]

In an earlier article on 17 August 2019 posted on the Korea Stamp Society’s website, we wrote about the Methodist’s 50th anniversary in Korea. Dr. Sherwood Hall, the creator of Korea’s first Tuberculosis/Christmas and New Year’s seal in 1932 also designed this seal. A number of examples of these seals used on mailings from Korea […]

Prior to occupation of southern Korea by American forces, the postage used was Japanese. Since the American occupation, and up to the present time, they have continued to use Japanese postage on hand. Importation of additional stamps from Japan was, of course, immediately stopped. No attempt was made to over the postage on hand in […]

In 1919 the Japanese Posts introduced “Postage Fee Paid” forms. These forms were used to pay for various kinds of mail matter in bulk. The official Japanese postal term was 郵便料金受領証原符 = “Postage fee reception original form” and is imprinted on top. The actual mail items received a circular bisected handstamp in characters “(post office […]

In the 1960s (and for years after that decade) KSS member Lyman Hale and his wife lived in South Korea as medical missionaries, meaning they stayed there both as medical staff and as missionaries. Especially during the 1960s Lyman Hale wrote a lot of articles for KP (but as recent as 2019 he was still […]

We have received several questions lately from members on how to order the hard copies of the Korean Philately (KP) magazines. It is currently explained on the website on how to order through Blurb, but we thought it would be good idea to do a refresher article on how the new KP’s came to be […]

Marci Jarvis, editor of Cat Mews (which is the magazine of the Cats on Stamps Study Unit) has a question with regards to the postage on this envelope. The Korean Stamp Corporation (KSC) sent it to the then editor of Topical Time, Jerry Husak, the founder of the American Topical Association. On it are a […]

Leafing through the catalog of DPRK stamps and analyzing the policy of themes and stories on the stamps, I had several questions. Perhaps you, or other KSS members, can help me with the answer. Starting in 1946 to issue postage stamps with neutral themes (Rosa of Sharon, Diamond Mountains), the postal administration expanded the themes […]

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 […]

In the last few issues of KP and on the KSS website we have shown examples of album pages made and/or used by KSS members. Here we show the original KSS album pages, the pages as produced and for years marketed in Korean Philately by our long-time member David Phillips.

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 […]

Philatelic items directly related to Korea are relatively rare in (international) auctions. Of course, there are these “collections” with albums packed with North Korean stamps from the 1970s and 1980s or the usual South Korean flag sheets and such, but occasionally interesting items do show up. Here are a few examples from two different auction […]