Supporting Philatelists Since 1952
Books and magazines about Korean philatelic subjects.
Senf Brothers The Brothers Senf (Gebr. Senf) of Leipzig/Germany operated a famous stamp shop from 1874 and had an “all world stationery service”. From 1892, they issued the Senf stamp catalogs. They also used a small guarantee mark “Gebr. Senf” on the reverse of postage stamps they offered.
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The database of the National Archives of Korea can be a valuable resource for philatelists interested in the postal history of the 1945-1948 USAMGIK period in Korea. By utilizing the database effectively, a philatelist can gain insights into the postal system during this time, including stamp usage, design, and production, as well as the broader […]
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Well, with the latest Korean Postage Stamp Catalogue (KPSC) for 2022-2023, it is “Back to the Future” or as the saying goes: “Old is New Again”. With the help of a fellow Korea Stamp Society (KSS) member living in Korea, Tony Michell, I was finally able to obtain a copy of the 2022-2023 edition of […]
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The Korean Stamp Review was a quarterly magazine published in English from 1976 to 2014 by the Korean Philatelic Center and authorized by KoreaPost. Ivo Spanjersberg published an article about one of the issues on the Korea Stamp Society’s (KSS) website. At that time Ivo wrote that some issues were available online on the KoreaPost […]
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In one of my boxes with all things related to Dr. Sherwood Hall’s Christmas and New Year/Tuberculosis seals, I found a copy of the English language Spring Issue of the “Korea Illustrated’ magazine from The Embassy of Korea issued in May, 1973 by the Korean Information Office in Washington, D.C. It has a good article […]
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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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The South Korean government has been promoting the digitization of archives for several decades now. This is great for stamp collectors, as highly detailed information on South Korean postal and revenue stamps has come to light thanks to the efforts of South Korean archives. If you can read/write (type) Korean, a lot of information can […]
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In the last few issues of KP and on the KSS website we have shown examples of album pages made and/or used by KSS members. Here we show the original KSS album pages, the pages as produced and for years marketed in Korean Philately by our long-time member David Phillips.
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Much has been written on the logistics, causes, and effects of the Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953). Charles Armstrong was correct to assert that the Cold War was a campaign of propaganda and psychological warfare,1 with the Korean War being no exception. It was not just a physical conflict, it was […]
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My interest in Chinese stamps has focused for the past few years on Manchukuo. During this time I have collected a number of books that have aided my research and one of the most useful has been a book with the catchy title “The Postage Stamps and Commemorative Cancellations of Manchoukuo/Manshukoku, Manchou Tikuo, Manchukuo”, written […]
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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.
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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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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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One of the most challenging aspects of collecting Korean stamps is that there are many forgeries/counterfeits/fakes of both the stamps as well as the overprints and cancellations of the early “Empire” issues from 1884 to 1900. Very often, the stamps, overprints and the cancellations can all be forgeries. Fortunately, there are few or none known […]
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(Our informal series on Korean album pages continues with this installment from KSS member Walter Swanson.) I am a member of Athens (Georgia, USA) Philatelic Society and before my retirement from teaching I was a member of Sunrise Stamp Club in Florida. I am #843 of Korea Stamp Society, since 1979, and Scandinavian Collectors Club […]
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As my Korean stamp collection grew, using commercially available quadrille blank sheets (Elbe, I think) and Showgard mounts, I arranged my mint stamps chronologically, but in simple rows and columns. Cancelled stamps, as there were many missing issues in my collection, were placed in a pre-printed album (probably from D.G. Phillips) using stamp hinges.
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For many years I have been using Palo Album pages for my Korean stamp collection. They are based in the USA and have very high quality pages, albums and album slip covers. The pages are five holes punched for their album binders. The pages are about 11 x 12 inches long. They have excellent standard […]
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In 1986/1987 KSS member John J. Sauer published “KSS Monograph 1: Korean Postal Stationery Catalog”. This 32 page publication can be download on the KSS website. A 2 page update to the original publication was published some time after as an addendum.
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The primary intent in creating this list of post offices is to aid philatelists and researchers in the identification of postmarks used in Old Korea during the Japanese period. For the average Western philatelist not familiar, or somewhat familiar with Chinese characters, reading cancels or postal addresses can be a daunting task. This task is […]
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During the course of collecting South Korean stamps since 1983 the problem of how to store the collection is always a difficult one. Stamp album page published by various companies are the traditional method for keeping a collection for easy access and viewing. Using Showgard or comparable stamp mounts preserves the stamps well but the […]
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