Korea Stamp Society

Korea Stamp Society’s (KSS) current Publisher/Webmaster, Ivo Spanjersberg, and I are working on issuing a special edition of the Korean Philately (KP). Originally we believed we would prepare a book or ”monogram” that would just cover Dr. Sherwood Hall’s Tuberculosis/Christmas and New Year’s seal program that occurred during the period of 1932-1940.

We saw in the article posted on the Korea Stamp Society’s (KSS) website on January 23, 2020, that there had been the exciting find of two covers sent from Korea with the unissued 1940 TB/Christmas and New year seal. These were found in the USA by a member of the family of a Christian missionary […]

Japanese control of Korea ended with the surrender on 15 August 1945 of the Imperial armed forces. Decisions made at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 were implemented after the surrender. The primary actions taken were the division of the Korean peninsula arbitrarily at the 38th Parallel, with the northern zone to be occupied by […]

This cover illustrates the use of stamps overprinted for the Custodian Force, India (CFI). This was a deployment of Indian forces, including the 60th Parachute Field Ambulance unit (which had been in Korea from November 1950) to oversee the repatriation of POWs after the armistice. The CFI was in Korea from late September 1953 until […]

What follows is an update on my article of 1996 about the investment potential of South Korean stamps. In 1972 (when stamps were touted as investments) Linn’s Weekly Stamp News and others started “Investment Suggestions” which is now called the “Tip of the Week”. In about 1980 Linn’s began a “Trends of Stamp Values” which […]

What follows is an update on my article of 1996 about the investment potential of South Korean stamps. In 1972 (when stamps were touted as investments) Linn’s Weekly Stamp News and others started “Investment Suggestions” which is now called the “Tip of the Week”. In about 1980 Linn’s began a “Trends of Stamp Values” which […]

Reader Evgeniy Savchenko commented about the article published on June 24, 2020 on the KSS website concerning the Chollima symbol often used on North Korean stamps. He noted that the USSR in 1960 issued a stamp commemorating the 15th anniversary of the liberation of Korea, Scott 2407. We now have a image of this stamp […]

Is this card and the cancellations on it real or fake? I’m not sure if I’m qualified enough to certify this card, but as a serious DPRK collector I think this card has a 95-99% possibility to be fake. In fact, in my personal opinion, this card is totally fake: the card itself is fake, […]

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.

Much has been written on the logistics, causes, and effects of the Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953). Charles Armstrong was correct to assert that the Cold War was a campaign of propaganda and psychological warfare,1 with the Korean War being no exception. It was not just a physical conflict, it was […]

Professor James H. Grayson, a member of the KSS since 2000, was invited to speak on the American Philatelic Society’s ‘Stamp Chat’ internet discussion group.  His subject was ‘North and South Korea: The first issues after the Second World’.  He uses a semiotic approach to understanding the designs of stamps to discover the meanings which […]

The newly issued 2021 Scott catalog, Vol 4A , has a Korean stamp (Scott804/KPSC639; issued December 1, 1971) for the New Year of 1972 on the cover. The year 1972 was the Year of the (Water) Rat, and this stamp shows two rats flying a kite. However, in the Korean language the word for mouse […]

(News from 우정사업본부 / KoreaPost) On 1 December 2020 KoreaPost issued a set of 2 stamps for New Year 2021. This particular stamp series is an annual event, a tradition which KoreaPost has maintained for many decades now. The year 2021 will be the Year of the Ox (note: not the cow!).

(News from 우정사업본부 / KoreaPost) On 20 November 2020 KoreaPost issued a series of stamps commemorating philatelic week in Korea. This is a yearly returning stamp series, which in different forms (for instance as “postal week”) has been around since the 1960s. The four stamps have all sorts of themes. KSC3465 is “when spring comes […]

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) On 17 November 2020 the Korea Stamp Corporation issued a stamp commemorating the 19th meeting of the Political Bureau. The KSC stated: “The 19th meeting of the Political Bureau of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea made a crucial decision to wage an 80-day […]

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) On 12 November 2020 the Korea Stamp Corporation issued a series of stamps and maxicards showing the Natural History Museum and several prehistoric animals.