Supporting Philatelists Since 1952
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 […]
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Preface: This series of articles derive from discussions among several KSS member collectors. Some of them are interested in collecting Korean (and Japanese) philatelic items but feel confused in distinguishing different surcharges of early Korean postal stationeries since they cannot read Hanja and Hangul. See here for part I about the usage of these cards […]
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Preface: This series of articles derive from discussions among several KSS member collectors. Some of them are interested in collecting Korean (and Japanese) philatelic items but feel confused in distinguishing different surcharges of early Korean postal stationeries since they cannot read Hanja and Hangul.
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(Editor: a recent question by Chen Yi-Fu led to quite a few answers being given in the comments section. The original article/question can be found here.) This small article is trying to answer some comments about the authenticity of KSC #5 (Sc #11) Secondary anniversary of the labour law.
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Is this card and the cancellations on it real or fake? I’m not sure if I’m qualified enough to certify this card, but as a serious DPRK collector I think this card has a 95-99% possibility to be fake. In fact, in my personal opinion, this card is totally fake: the card itself is fake, […]
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Recently I acquired a piece of black paper with many Korean stamps affixed. The title at the top reads “Korean stamps” in Kanji. The paper is folded into 4 columns. The first column has 3 North Korean stamps, issued in 1946, at the upper part, followed by the wording: “North Korean stamps, issued at Pyongyang […]
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For anyone studying Korean postage stamps and postal stationery, understanding the structure of the Korean language and the Korean alphabet will enrich the understanding of any material which you have. The Korean language is highly structured and regular. Some sixty percent of its vocabulary derives from written Chinese (called in Korean Hanja 漢字).
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It is interesting to study geography through postal history. Recently I acquired this postcard. I noticed it because the sender’s address was written as “KyongSong”, the old name of Seoul during the Japanese colonial era. So at the first glance it seems this was a card sent from the South to the North.
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(Our informal series on Korean album pages continues with this installment from KSS member Chen Yi-Fu.) For ROK and classic Korean stamps I use an album made by the South Korean company Woo-Moon-Kuan, which is also the publisher of the ROK stamp catalogue. For DPRK stamps I use Palo albums, the only company I know […]
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The DPRK issued a souvenir sheet of Pyongyang folk park in 2013. This souvenir sheet depicts a view of this theme park and its face-value is 60 (30+30) won. However, the park was closed in 2016 and this souvenir sheet was withdrawn, 3 years after issuance. This is probably one of the most well-known modern […]
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The DPRK issued a set of 5 porcelain stamps in 1999. The KSC numbers for these stamps are KSC3983-3987. However, a careful collector might find something strange about two of the stamps in this set, KSC3983 (70 jon) and KSC 3987 (2.50 won).
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In 2012 the DPRK issued a set of giant panda stamps. This set consisted of 2 stamps and 1 souvenir sheet. The KSC numbers given to these stamps were 4838-4840.
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The greatest difficultly in studying DPRK stamps is that reliable references are very limited in number, and the information available might be incomplete or even incorrect. Some stamps are without images in catalogues, some are unissued; and once in a while, collectors may surprisingly find something they have never seen or known before. However, it […]
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Recently KSS members Yi Yong Suk and Chen Yi-Fu showed the difference between domestic printings versus international (collector’s) printings by showing Scott No. 2824 & 2824a side by side. But then Yi-Fu also said something about more modern domestic printings.
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