In September 2018 KSS member Yi Yong Suk asked a question regarding his set of 1959 “Peaceful Reunification of Korea” stamps (Scott 175a / A141; KSC 151). One of our members, Kevin Mackeown, sent one cancelled example showing the imperforated stamps were real and then sent more examples used on cover. Now KSS member Florian Eichhorn, BPP expertizer for Korea, also sent in a few examples.
Florian sent two examples of Scott 175a / A141; KSC 151. The first example is the stamp on part of a cover, complete with a Pyongyang cancellation from August 1959:
The second example is the same stamp but then on an entire sent to former East Germany (“DDR” in German). Notice that the Korean word for Germany, 독일, doesn’t make any distinction between the two different German states, but the Russian does:
The next question is: how many other usages of this stamp (or others from the same era) are in member’s collections?
From my experience with non-philatelic covers used in the late War years to the early post-War Period of Reconstruction, showed me that the stamps were probably used primarily as imperfs. At least that is true with the majority of the covers I have seen ( at minimum 200-300) in that period (ca. 1952/53//1958/9)–i. e., the stamps used were imperforate. I find that, contrary to what we may surmise, the perforated “versions” of most sets issued in that time frame are difficult to find on non-philatelic covers.
So these early imperfs are NOT in the same class as the imperfs we get in new issues today, that is, “made for collectors.”
Please note my comments are strictly empirical, that is, “observation based,” and, of course, limited to covers I have seen.
The specific stamp you illustrate I have seen on several covers, imperf. as you show.
In an Auktionshaus Christoph Gärtner auction this cover with a 1959 “Peaceful Reunification of Korea” stamp showed up:
Two covers on an exhibition(?) page
Detail of the cover with the 1959 stamp
Source: https://www.philasearch.com/de/i_9081_599769/4045_Korea/9081-A49-16911.html?