PhilaKorea 2025: A resounding triumph!

A resounding triumph! PhilaKorea 2025 has, in many ways, now set the standard for future international stamp exhibitions. It will stand as a model for exceptional organisation, focus, harmony and success in delivering its objectives. Not just my opinion, I can assure you. Representing the KSS was an honour that was genuinely appreciated and recognised by both the PhilaKorea 2025 Organising Committee and the Korea Philatelic Federation.

Among the many highlights was the lunch given by the KPF for the KSS, hosted by Jin Hur. It was great to meet with KSS members (right to left in photo) Paul Scholtens and his wife Irene, from Canberra; myself; John Welch from Arizona; Tony Michell, originally from the UK but resident in Seoul for 48 years; and Chen Yi-Fu from Taipei. We enjoyed an excellent Korean barbecue which provided a pleasant pause during the hectic exhibition programme.

The KPF attendees were: Jang-Hwan Kim, Former KPF President and Senior Supervisor; Kwon-Haeng Cho, KPF President; Jin Hur, PhilaKorea Commissioner-General & KPF Vice-President (KSS member); Byung-Rae Hyun, KPF Secretary-General; Sang-Boom Ryoo, PhilaKorea Deputy Commissioner-General and Young-Kil Kim, PhilaKorea Deputy Commissioner-General (KSS member).

Not only was it a first gathering of KSS members for many decades, but it also gave me the opportunity to present Jin Hur with one of the specially commissioned Korea Stamp Society medals.

This was awarded in recognition of Jin’s outstanding efforts in establishing close connections with the Korea Philatelic Federation, after many years of unsuccessful attempts by many non-Korean based collectors.

My secondary duty was to choose the exhibits worthy of the KSS special prize medals. Despite the reasonable number of Korean-related exhibits, the planned awarding of medals by class had to be adjusted. Surprisingly, there was not a single pre-1945 traditional display to qualify for the medal.

Jin Hur receives the KSS Medal in recognition of his efforts in promoting cooperation with the Korea Philatelic Federation.

In the end, I settled on an additional post-1945 postal history exhibit and one from the 18-20 years old Junior class, as the Experimental Class also offered no candidates. After much deliberation, the final list of KSS medal winners (who will also receive 5-year was as follows:

Pre-1945 Postal History

• Young-Kil Kim (South Korea) – The Postal History of Great Joseon & Daehan Empire(1884-1905)

Post-1945 Postal History

• Chansoo Park (South Korea) – Postal History of the Republic of Korea 1945-1950

Post-1945 Traditional

• Yosuke Kido (Japan) – Republic of Korea War Time Provisional Definitive Issue
• Sang Wook Nam (South Korea) – The 1st Regular Stamps of the Republic of Korea

Other classes (Junior 18-20 years)

• So-Yeon Kim (South Korea) – Korea: US Army Military Government Definitive Stamps 1945-1948

KSS Medals on display with some of the show’s Special Prizes

Congratulations to them all, and in particular Young-Kil who also won the Grand Prix National – the top award for a Korean-related exhibit. In this picture, Young-Kil, in his capacity as Deputy Commissioner-General, is actually presenting me with my medal and certificate as UK Commissioner to PhilaKorea 2025.

I also had the very valuable opportunity of talking with Brebner Print of New Zealand, who have been producing stamps for Korea Post for many years. They printed two of the special issues for PhilaKorea 2025: the self-adhesive Korean Desserts sheet with a cinnamon infused coating, and the Dancheong paintwork miniature sheet.

To add some excitement for collectors, of the 40,000 Dancheong sheets produced only 3,000 were printed with a gold overprint (rather than the standard white). A maximum of 500 gold versions were sold each day at the show post office. The enthusiasm to acquire them was evident by the very lengthy lines that snaked around the entrance to the show each morning.

I have no idea how the limited edition information was put out, as I knew nothing about it until after Sales were restricted to a maximum of two sheets per customer. The full story of the Brebner sheets for PhilaKorea will appear in the next issue of Korean Philately. On the subject of our journal, Jun Hur kindly arranged for 100 copies of our special PhilaKorea issue, written by our President Bob Finder, to be printed for distribution at the show. These were given out to every national commissioner and selected jury and KPF members. This was probably the broadest international distribution of KP in its history!

My final ‘duty’ was to be involved in a podcast organised by KSS member, Seoul resident and ‘anchor man’ of NK News, Jacco Zwetsloot. The topic of the podcast was the North-South mail exchanges that took place between 1946 and the outbreak of war in June 1950. It will be available to listen to soon, and a link will be published on the website as soon as it is available. Jacco and I had originally met up in 2014 at the previous PhilaKorea where he kindly accompanied me on a visit to a resiliently intransigent Seoul bookseller who had a collection of letters from a UN POW in his inventory. The price then was ridiculously high, the seller was not prepared to budge, and you won’t be surprised to learn that the correspondence remains unsold!

Korean dealers, particularly those at the show, also seem completely out of touch when it comes to pricing of ‘interesting’ material. I should point out that there was very little on offer in that category, but when a set of die proofs of the first South Korea definitive issue was being offered at $240,000 (the price to non-Koreans, that is) you can see the problem! Not one of the items on our President’s ‘shopping list’ of sought after errors was found at the show.

All in all, a memorable few days in Seoul. The success should taste even sweeter for Jin Hur, when one thinks back to last year when the show’s postponement led to waves of comments doubting that PhilaKorea 2025 would ever take place. Add to that the 50% reduction in budget for the event compared to 2014, and in some ways what we were privileged to experience was something of a miracle.