Supporting Philatelists Since 1952
News about Korean philately in general.
The Korea Stamp Society’s (KSS) Board, after wide-ranging discussions with the membership, have decided to implement new guidelines for KSS membership starting on January 1, 2023. We have grown over the past four years from less than 40 members to over 400. During this period, we have not charged for KSS membership. The Board believes […]
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Depending on the laws of a specific land which stamps to publish is decided upon in all sorts of ways. In some countries the government (usually through a ministry) decides what which stamps to issue, in other countries it is the postal authority or the postal services themselves. In Germany for instance the Ministry of […]
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In early January 2021 the book “Buddhism on Stamps” was released by the Indian philatelist Mr. Lokeswara Rao (retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in Nagaland, India). He spared no efforts in creating his book, as not only does the book come with an introduction by the current Chief Postmaster General, the book also contains […]
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Philatelic items directly related to Korea are relatively rare in (international) auctions. Of course, there are these “collections” with albums packed with North Korean stamps from the 1970s and 1980s or the usual South Korean flag sheets and such, but occasionally interesting items do show up. Here are a few examples from two different auction […]
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Throughout the history seals have adorned letters and manuscripts. Whether wax or paper, this simple practical device has been utilised as a messenger in its own right, demonstrating power and status, highlighting a worthy cause or sending a seasonal greeting (see the famous TB Christmas seals). The seal and its cinderella cousin have a justified […]
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Several interesting items are shown in current auctions run by Soler y Llach and Gärtner. These items are a cover (Soler y Llach) and postcards (Gärtner) with stamps from the classical period of Korean philatelic history, in this case covers sent between 1897 and 1904.
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We are always on the look out for interesting Korean philatelic materials showing up in auctions. One noticeable item showing up in a Rapp auction (“Rapp Auktion Nr. 39 und Nr. 40 von 23. bis 28. November 2020“) is item nr. 2826. This item is listed in both German and English. The Korean items shown […]
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The Dutch mail auction ‘Sheraton & Peel’ by René Hillesum Filatelie (since 1991) offers a selection of Dutch (and Colonies) and international philatelic materials. The upcoming auction of December 23 is offering several postal history items of interest to Korea collectors.
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Professor James H. Grayson, a member of the KSS since 2000, was invited to speak on the American Philatelic Society’s ‘Stamp Chat’ internet discussion group. His subject was ‘North and South Korea: The first issues after the Second World’. He uses a semiotic approach to understanding the designs of stamps to discover the meanings which […]
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The newly issued 2021 Scott catalog, Vol 4A , has a Korean stamp (Scott804/KPSC639; issued December 1, 1971) for the New Year of 1972 on the cover. The year 1972 was the Year of the (Water) Rat, and this stamp shows two rats flying a kite. However, in the Korean language the word for mouse […]
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In 1984 I established a standing order account with the Korean Philatelic Center (KPC) for all new commemorative and definitive stamp issues including souvenir sheets. This account was initiated by writing a personal check in $US to the KPC with a payee as instructed. I am not fluent in Korean so the process used was […]
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Because of the corona virus doing the rounds the Korean Stamp Museum is, like so many other such institutes, closed at the moment. However, just a few days ago KoreaPost issued a link on its website to a complete virtual tour of the Korean Stamp Museum. When clicked one starts just outside the museum, underground, […]
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The official (state) postal organization of North Korea, the Korea Stamp Corporation, has published the themes and dates for the 2020 stamp releases of the DPRK. The January and February releases on the list are already known of course, but many other themes were shown for the first time with the release of the list.
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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.
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The current crisis with the corona virus has created the need for the Korean government to make as many Koreans as possible aware of the risk. Currently a series of campaigns raising awareness of how to avoid getting sick is on-going. KoreaPost has joined in by creating this cartoon, a “webtoon”, reminding people to help […]
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(News from 우정사업본부 / KoreaPost) KoreaPost released the 2020 publication schedule, showing all planned new stamp issues for the whole year. Several anniversaries are on the list and so are both the Korean culture and history related issues as well as Korean independence related stamps.
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(News from 우정사업본부 / KoreaPost) KoreaPost has released promotional materials for the recent stamp issue titled “Science and Technology that Lead Korea” (KPC3427-3434). These materials were published on both the KoreaPost Facebook page as well as the Kstamp blog. The materials are available in Korean only.
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One way of acquiring new items for a stamp collection is by buying them on online auction websites. There are many great items available online, but also many fakes. But what is real and what isn’t? Also, even if real, not everything is as important or interesting as it might be described by the seller […]
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PostNews, one of the websites maintained in the KoreaPost family of postal websites, released images of the series of New Year greetings cards for 2020. The (Chinese/Korean) year 2020, starting on January 25 2020, is the Year of the (Metal) Rat. Several of the cards therefore show a rat/mouse, but other images are available.
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The Korean National Tuberculosis Association interviewed the illustrator who created this year’s Christmas seals, Ahn Sol (안솔). The seals show the Haenyeo (해녀) of Jeju island, the women who dive for seafood around the coast of the island. Ahn Sol created the artwork for the seals while staying for a couple of months on the […]
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