This cover is from M L Swinehart a missionary in Kwangju to an address in Virginia, USA dated to 1926.
The Cover
The cover is a simple envelope with a printed return address in the upper left-hand corner with a franked 2 sen stamp (Sakura 145) of the Japanese definitive series of 1914-1925 in the upper right-hand corner. The cancellation is very smudged, and the precise date and place of cancellation cannot be determined. The interesting point about the address – the name of the city and the nation – is that they are given according to Korean pronunciation and preference. The city’s name is given as Kwangju (光州) rather than in the Japanese reading of the characters as Kōshū. Officially, Japanese-ruled Korea was called ‘Chōsen’ and not ‘Korea’. The cover has been stamped with a square seal reading ‘Beikoku’ (美國, America) in Japanese.
James, a very interesting article for “Korea Topic in Brief”. Thanks. I was once interested in missionaries to Korea and I do recall I came across “Topic in Brief” a few times. There was a 1929 publication of Korea Topic in Brief (1921~1929), which apparently covered the newsletters from Oct 1921 to Nov 1929, with 244 pages.