One of our members showed a series of pictures with all sorts of items. The question is: what are these items? Do you recognize them? Then please leave your ideas in the comments below the items. You can refer to them by the number given with the figures.
The background to the collection is this: “My uncle was an avid collector. As a military man with 30 years of service he was in World War II, Korean War and Vietnam. He would collect stamps as his units traveled. His collection is massive. It has been sealed for close to 30 years. My goal is to identify a value and transfer the collection to a collector who would enjoy it. My uncle enjoyed Korean stamps and also German stamps, especially during Nazi’s rule.”
Here are the photos:
Please refer to the numbers when telling what is what.
Here are some of the things I recognize:
Fig. 3-4 and fig. 11-12: cash insurance envelope seals, not Korean but Japanese (and used in Japanese era Korea), from 1937 onwards. See for instance this article for the Korean version: https://koreastampsociety.org/2019/10/19/cash-insurance-envelopes-in-korea-some-backgrounds/?highlight=insurance Catalogue value of 50 yen each according to Hasegawa’s “Narumi’s Japanese Revenue Stamp Catalogue” (2016, page 139), but I am not sure about complete sheets or imprint blocks, these could be of interest to collectors of Japanese revenue stamps.
Fig. 2 is intriguing, I believe these were domestic registration seals, but I have to look into it. I have seen them used on covers before and I thought they were from the 1960s or 1970s, but if they were acquired at approximately the same time as the rest of these items then these items must have been from the 1950s.
Fig. 5: overprint in top are the North Korean overprint type. I haven’t seen such a multiple of these before. See https://koreastampsociety.org/2019/06/01/the-1950-dprk-overprints-on-1949-rok-stamps-postally-used/
Fig. 17-23: Japanese revenue stamps, from the 1898-1947 series (and probably mostly the “taisho white paper version” of 1937-1942) They were also used on documents in Korea under Japanese rule. Very common, I have seen such documents offered on Kobay (Korean Ebay) for a few dollars each, sometimes up to 10 dollars.
I recognize some of the bonds, but I’ll leave those to the specialized collectors.
1) North Korea stationery card summer 1950
2) Parcel number labels japanese style, but they were used-up in Korea until the early 1960s. Placename handstamped.
6) North Korean postage stamp, see Scott catalog
7) South Korea stamps early 1950s cto (First Day?) to unadressed envelopes.
8) South Korea stamps from liberation issue used on domestic registered cover.
9) Japanese fiscals on a fee receipt cutouts marked „Haeju District Court 16.3.17“ (March 17, 1941
10) June 1939 unsealed printed matter envelope. The red framed imprint says „insurance voucher“, which was printed.
11) Full printers pouch of insured (declared value) green seals of the late 1930s/1940s type. It says on fron “500 copies”, See Ivos explanations/hints for 3), 4 etc. – It has red handstamped name seals of various quality control staffs and the ones in charge for distribution.
12)-14) Japanese WW-II war bonds.
15) looks like a PR of some early postwar elections candidate in South Korea.
16) A South Korea letter with tower 50ch definitive sent inland to Chongju district and US civil censors tape.
17) -23) invoices, receipts ec. showing 1943/44 fiscals usages.
These are still abundant and around 1-3$ per copy only.
24) letter not mailed but brought by private messenger
25) registered cover. The two bottom characters just mean „urgent“ and are private. Also these particular two characters were never used to indicate a postal express handling.
The total rate of 5+12s pays registration only and confirms that.
The postmark is August 1943 and used within Korea.
26) Another Korea domestic registered cover used March 1942 and the 4+10 rate.
27) Korea-South liberation issue franked domestic cover.
27a) Violet stamp on reverse says No. 4 police district No. 10 Police district unit.
28) another japanese war bond
29) North Korean bond of 1950. Probably the most interesting thing here.
30) unsealed printed matter used in Korea May 1941, marking appears to be from a TPO (railcar post office).
#13 Is a Japanese China Incident Special Treasury War Bond for 10 yen.
#14 is a Japanese Greater East Asian War Treasury Bond. 100 Yen.