An Excellent Example of a Postally Used South Korean Postcard — Just Before the start of the Korean War

One of our Korea Stamp Society members has the fortune to have in his collection a genuinely postally used postcard that was mailed just before the start of the Korean War in 1950. At the time of the purchase, our member did not realize the significance of the postcard; he was just interested in obtaining […]

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A Post Card from Korea: A Poignant Relic from Colonial Korea

(A recent listing of a postcard on Ebay led to a series of emails amongst active KSS members. James Grayson, who lived for several decades in Korea and knows a lot about the history of churches in Korea, created this text, together with Florian Eichhorn, in answer to the questions raised.) This post card forms […]

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Stamps, Nationalism and Political Transitions

The academic publishers Routledge has just published a new book edited by Prof. Stanley D. Brunn of the University of Kentucky on the subject of stamps as a source for documentary research on political trends, changes and transitions. Stanley Brunn, along with Jack Child and David Scott, has been among the leading Anglophone scholars to […]

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Missionary Correspondence in Colonial Korea: McCune – Hunt Letters

The three envelopes described below are small but important pieces of information about three key Presbyterian missionary families in Korea – the McCunes, the Hunts, and the Blairs. All of these families were involved in education, and became embroiled in the politics of colonial Korea under the Japanese. In particular, they and other missionaries were […]

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Missionary stamp collectors on 1964 KPS membership list

In an issue of the KSS Newsletter, there was a photocopy of part of the membership list of the Korea Philatelic Society. It is interesting to note that two non-Koreans are listed as members, both missionaries. One is KSS member Dr. Lyman Hale (1922 – 2019), a physician at Severance Hospital, Seoul and a member […]

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1913 SPG Postcard showing missionary residence

On Kobay, the Korean version of Ebay, mission history-related philatelic items are often available. Here is one of many of these items – a postcard sent within Great Britain from Grimsby to Skidbrooke on 19 February 1913. Both of these places are coastal towns in north east Lincolnshire. Grimsby is a major fishing port, whereas […]

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Christian Literature Society correspondence illustrates different surface mail cachets

A series of covers, recently offered for sale on Ebay, show another interesting piece of Korean missionary history. The Christian Literature Society of Korea (대한 기독교 서회) was and is a major publisher and bookseller in Korea, and dates back to the earliest years of Protestant Christian missions. It is an ecumenical organisation as is […]

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1963 cover from important Methodist medical missionary educator

This envelope is particularly interesting from a postal history point of view. The writer, Dr. Roberta G. Rice, was writing to Dr. Charles Mayo the head of the renowned Mayo Clinic, and his wife in a personal capacity. Dr. Rice was a member of the (American) Methodist Mission who had been appointed after the Korean […]

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The Semiotics of the First Korean Issues

As a philatelist, my principal interest has been in the semiotics of the stamps, the meaning of their design. The first stamps issued by a national government or stamp issuing authority are particularly intriguing. This is a government’s first opportunity to present itself graphically to the world. What do they put on their very first […]

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Australian missionary postal history shows early links with Korea

Abacus Auctions of Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia in its auctions for 30 November to 1 December, 2019 displayed three Korean postcards for sale, two of which are pictoral cards. The pictoral postcards are of a ‘yŏt’ (Korean confection) seller and a view of a city gate in Sŏul, possibly the Great North Gate. The text […]

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