The 1935 Korean Christmas and New Year Seal

In 1935, the Korean United Christmas Seal Committee released a new design that was larger than previous seals. This seal shows two girls playing on a seesaw while another child watches, with the Diamond Mountains, a well known landscape and tourist attraction in northern Korea, in the background. The jumping on the seesaw, to propel the opposite player into the air, is a traditional game played by Korean girls, especially during holidays such as the New Year’s holiday. Thus, the game was a good subject for the Christmas and New Year’s seal. This Korean game with the seesaw is called Neolttwigi. In Korea it can sometimes be seen in entertainment programs with acrobatics.

For the 1935 program, Dr. Hall’s committee would issue just the one design of the seal, sheets of 25 seals, including some imperforated sheets, two slightly different postcard layouts, and a fold sheet, all using the design with the children playing on the seesaw. This seal was designed by Nul Twi-ki and little is reported in the literature about this artist.