Ivo Spanjersberg, Author at Korea Stamp Society

Having fun with the Korean postal services: cancellations

March 23, 2020February 23, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg262Leave a Comment

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 […]

KPC3435-3437: Korean Aircraft (2nd series)

March 20, 2020March 20, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg3605 Comments

(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 […]

KSC5240: Greenhouse Vegetables

March 20, 2020March 15, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg259Leave a Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) On 20 March 2020 the Korea Stamp Corporation issued a sheetlet containing four different stamps showing “greenhouse vegetables”. The KSC stated: “The DPRK pays close concern to supplying the people with plenty of fresh vegetables all the year round.”

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

March 18, 2020March 15, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg2993 Comments

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.

Korean paquebot cover from 1953 shows up

March 14, 2020April 1, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg242Leave a Comment

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 […]

KSC5268-5269: City of Samjiyon

March 10, 2020February 23, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg471Leave a Comment

(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.”

“Missent to Korea” instead of paquebot from Korea

March 7, 2020January 21, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg225Leave a Comment

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. […]

KoreaPost releases Yearbook 2019

March 3, 2020March 3, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg250Leave a Comment

On 28 February 2020 KoreaPost released the 2019 Yearbook. This Yearbook contains all the official commemorative and regular stamps released by KoreaPost during 2019, making for a total of 82 commemorative and 3 regular stamps. All descriptions are in both Korean and English.

KSC5265-5267: Yangdok Hot Spring Resort

February 29, 2020February 20, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg411Leave a Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation has issued a stamp and a souvenir sheet showing the Yangdok Hot Spring Resort. According to the KSC “the inaugural ceremony of the Yangdok Hot Spring Resort was held with splendour on December 7, Juche 108 (2019).”

KSC5263-5264: Jungphyong Greenhouse Vegetable Farm

February 29, 2020February 20, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg308Leave a Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation has issued a stamp and a souvenir sheet showing the Village of Jungphyong and it’s “Greenhouse Vegetable Farm”. According to the KSC “the inaugural ceremony of Jungphyong Greenhouse Vegetable Farm and Tree Nursery was held with splendour on December 3, Juche 108 (2019).”

KSC5238-5239: 78th Birthday of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il

February 16, 2020February 7, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg3481 Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation has issued two stamps showing Jong Il Peak and Mt Paektu. According to the KSC “Mt Paektu is the sacred mountain of the revolution where the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung organized and waged the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle. The great leader Comrade Kim […]

Reader’s Question: History of Travelling Post Offices in Korea?

February 12, 2020September 22, 2019 Ivo Spanjersberg296Leave a Comment

Does anybody know more about the history of Travelling Post Offices (우편열차) in Korea? What I have found so far comes from two pictures showing two boards from the Stamp Museum in Cheonan (not Seoul) from an exhibit on TPO’s in Korea. This board lists for instance that the first mail transported by train […]

KSC5258-5262: Let us break through head-on all the barriers to our advance!

February 10, 2020February 7, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg398Leave a Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation issued a series of stamps to commemorate the Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. According to the KSC “the Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea was held from […]

KSC5236-5237: Vehicles

February 5, 2020February 7, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg301Leave a Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation has issued two stamps showing vehicles produced in the DPRK. The vehicles shown are a trolley bus and a tram car.

Korean paquebot covers (1954) Part III: The captains and the Busan fires

January 25, 2020May 17, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg297Leave a Comment

This is the final installment of a series of articles which started with a text from Talbert B. Fowler from August 1954 as Part I and some background information to an activity started by Milbury named the Sea-Jug Post as Part II. In this part we look at Busan during the Korean War and learn […]

KSC5235: Sweet Brier

January 24, 2020January 26, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg277Leave a Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation has issued a stamp and a so-called entire showing sweet brier. The 10 won stamp, published on 24 January, coincides with the release of a 10 won stamp showing the national tree of North Korea, the pine tree (KSC5233), and another 10 won stamp […]

KSC5234: Bamboo

January 24, 2020January 26, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg308Leave a Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation has issued a stamp and a so-called entire showing bamboo. The 10 won stamp, published on 24 January, coincides with the release of a 10 won stamp showing the national tree of North Korea, the pine tree (KSC5233).

KSC5233: Pine Tree

January 24, 2020January 26, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg308Leave a Comment

(News from 조선우표사 / Korea Stamp Corporation) The Korea Stamp Corporation has issued a stamp to “reflect the pine tree, national tree of the DPRK. The pine tree is an evergreen conifer of the family Pinaceae which grows on a vast area below 800m above sea level except the northern highlands of the Korean peninsula. […]

Korean Philately Vol. 54 No. 1 (Q1 2020) Published!

January 22, 2020February 1, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg5294 Comments

For the first time in 7 years the KSS has published a new edition of the KSS magazine, Korean Philately. Our magazine has been published since 1952, first simply as a few typed and copied sheets but later on as an A5 (booklet) sized magazine and more recently as a US Letter sized magazine. This […]

Revenue stamps in album pages?

January 21, 2020January 21, 2020 Ivo Spanjersberg327Leave a Comment

What started with a simple article about someone’s stamp album pages has since become quite a series. So far however all the album pages shown by members are used to store and show postal stamps. Fiscal stamps, or revenue stamps, are a completely different story.