The two images show the front and back of a postcard mailed with the 1936-37 Christmas seal tied by a San Francisco cancel and also shows a PAQUEBOT cancel with San. Fran. Calif. The front of the card shows the N.Y.K. Line S.S. Taiyo Maru. This is the first usage of a Christmas seal that I have seen used during the proper time period and tied to the cover. The PAQUEBOT marking gives it an additional flavor.
The first KSS website
Please note: this card was shown on the first (pre-2000) website of the KSS, which was maintained by Thomas J. Richards. These first pages were saved by Harold Penn, who then created the second KSS website. It is now shown again on this generation, the third, of the KSS website.
It seems to me the PAQUEBOT cancellation is utterly philatelic in nature: a US stamp on a card sent from a US port (San Francisco) to a US address. The fact that the ship was Japanese doesn’t really matter, the first port of call was a US port and a US stamp was used. So this must have been cancelled by request.
Hi Ivo, that is a great card, wish I had it for the seal on cover.. Many of the PAQUEBOT cancellations are philatelic. The Korean Christmas seal may have been picked up in Korea or Japan, and then individual posted it when they arrived in San Francisco. The postmark matches the seal date and that Japanese shipping company probably stopped over in Korea.
On the other hand, the seal could have come from someone in the USA. Other than Korea, the main outlet for Dr. Hall’s Korean Christmas seals was the USA. He would sell them to the USA for people to use them on their Christmas mail. Any Korean Christmas seal used on cover is great. Also it is great to find the Korean Christmas postcards used with Japanese or other countries stamps. The postcards began in 1933 and they will be included in my next article about the 1933 issue, which I am working on.
The Americans were supposed to use Christmas seals on the backside of the envelope (any Christmas seal). But since there wasn’t any room because of the picture side of the postcard, this individual put in on the addressee side. So, you can find the Korean Christmas seals on various USA mailings, but I have also seen them from other countries like the UK and Scandinavian countries where Dr. Hall also sold the Korean Christmas seals.