In early 2019 I wrote an article for the KSS about “unissued” DPRK stamps. This showed that, in addition to the regular issued stamps, there were (and are still) many “disappeared” or “re-appeared” stamps in DPRK’s philatelic history. This short refresher article gives a bit more information as to why these stamps were treated the way they were by the Korea Stamp Corporation (KSC), which also issues the Korea Stamp Catalogue (unfortunately also “KSC”).
Basically I have divided these special stamps into several category types (2010 Korean Stamp Catalogue and 2012 Scott catalogue are used for cross reference):
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It is great to see this type of highly specialized article on our website. (This article was also in the most recent KP.)
Interesting How many (quantity) overprints were made? Stamps #4325A-D “70th birthday of Yuri Gagarin”.
Sorry I don’t know. DPRK always don’t tell their quantities. The quantities of current issues are also reference only.
Stamp KSC#998 is one of the strange and mysterious stamps. 15 years ago I had a conversation with very reputable dealer about this stamp. And he told me that he would not sell it even for 1000 euros … But now the price has dropped.
Who has seen the flyer for stamps #4325A-D (overprints)? Usually Korea Stamp Corporation always issues such leaflets. And always indicates the quantity of stamps issued. It is a shame that the employees of Korea Stamp Corporation are not members of our Society.
I want to add information about one stamp to this great article.
Revolutionary fighter Kim Yong Bom (KSC #454, Scott #484, Michel #489).
The stamp from set of five stamps (#450-454) dedicated to revolutionary fighters. In the USSR, this set was sold without this stamp! In not used condition stamp and is very rare and almost never found on the market. But there are sales of such stamp as CTO or on envelopes.
Perhaps this stamp was withdrawn for political reasons (it was not sold in the USSR and possibly in other countries). But a small quantity of mint stamps was used in the post offices and have normal postage cancellation. On the other side, analysis of the situation on the philatelic market says that almost the whole small circulation of this stamp was probably canceled to order.
It is interesting to know the official color of overprints on the 4325A-D “70th birthday of Yuri Gagarin” stamps. I saw such stamps with green, red and black overprints. These stamps are missing in the Korea Stamp Corporation catalog which was released in 2007, but there are in the 2010 catalog. Therefore, it can be assumed that these set was “unissued”. The choice of color and design of the overprints was poor.
The final overprint color should be red on sport issues, and green on astronaut issues.
At first the color were black but the black overprints were invisible, so they changed the color. However, in recent years, those black overprints were released to market from trash bin.
“were released to market from trash bin”. Do you mean they are fakes or are they trial proofs?