KPC3442-3445: Historic Architecture in Korea – Royal Palaces (Special Edition)

(News from 우정사업본부 / KoreaPost) On 26 February 2020 KoreaPost issued a series of four stamps showing “Historic Architecture in Korea”, in this particular case (parts of) the royal palaces of Korea. Besides a “regular” set of stamps the stamps were also issued as a set with the same subjects, but with a different printing […]

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KPC3438-3441: Historic Architecture in Korea – Royal Palaces

(News from 우정사업본부 / KoreaPost) On 26 February 2020 KoreaPost issued a series of four stamps showing “Historic Architecture in Korea”. In this particular cases the stamps show (parts of) the royal palaces of Korea: the Jagyeongjeon Chamber (경복궁 자경전), Buyongjeong (창덕궁 부용정), Myeongjeongjeon (창경궁 명정전) in Changgyeonggung Palace and Seogjojeon (덕수궁 석조전) in Deoksu […]

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Having fun with the Korean postal services: cancellations

Because of the extreme emphasis of Koreans on education there are, even today in times of digital communications, a lot of stationery shops in Korea. These shops sell hundreds and sometimes even thousands of different products, one of them being whole series of sticker stamps. These stickers look like stamps because of their “perforation” and […]

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KPC3435-3437: Korean Aircraft (2nd series)

(News from 우정사업본부 / KoreaPost) On 20 March 2020 KoreaPost issued a series of three stamps showing aircraft produced in Korea, the second in the series showing Korean aircraft. These aircraft are the KUH-1EM, the KUH-1P and the KUH-1FS, which are all helicopters produced by Korea Aerospace Industries. These helicopters were the result of  the […]

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Reader’s Question: Was this a common type of advertising card at the time?

Recently I bought at a Dutch stamp fair, Winterstamps, this item. It is not particularly valuable, but it did peak my interest because I had not seen this type of item before. Nowadays the Korea Stamp Corporation, the official state run North Korean stamp issuing organization, issues rather small new stamp issue leaflets/brochures.

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Korean paquebot cover from 1953 shows up

In a recent series of reprinted articles several covers with Korean (Busan) paquebot cancellations from the 1950s were shown. One cover was referenced in an article by Talbert Fowler from 1954. This cover apparently came with a strange paquebot marking. The cover showed up recently in an inheritance sale of Korean paquebot covers from a […]

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KSC5268-5269: City of Samjiyon

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation has issued two souvenir sheets showing the City of Samjiyon. The KSC describes the subject of the sheets as “the epitome of the socialist civilization whose architecture strikes the perfect combination of the nationality, modernity and specific feature of the northern tableland.”

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“Missent to Korea” instead of paquebot from Korea

Recently I bought a cover on Ebay with a “Missent from Korea” cachet on it. Since the addressee on the envelope, Gustav Lund, was a very well-known paquebot cover collector it was immediately obvious to me that this was supposed to have been a paquebot cover. But there was no paquebot cachet on the cover. […]

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Korean Souvenir Books and Reprints issues of 1903-1906 (Part II: Reprints)

The Scott catalogue states that most of the high value Scott numbers 52-54 reprints, the 50 ch, 1 won, and 2 won, with thin, semi-transparent paper, perforation 12 ½, that are in collectors’ collections and on the market today, come from the early souvenir books. Scott values 52-4 at $400, $600, and $875, respectively; but […]

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A brief biography of Helen Kingsbury Zirkle (1898 – 1976)

My interest in Chinese stamps has focused for the past few years on Manchukuo. During this time I have collected a number of books that have aided my research and one of the most useful has been a book with the catchy title “The Postage Stamps and Commemorative Cancellations of Manchoukuo/Manshukoku, Manchou Tikuo, Manchukuo”, written […]

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