Korea Stamp Society

Missionary Correspondence from Kwangju, 1926

May 24, 2023January 25, 2023 James H. Grayson471 Comment

This cover is from M L Swinehart a missionary in Kwangju to an address in Virginia, USA dated to 1926.

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

October 12, 2022October 29, 2022 James H. Grayson219Leave a Comment

(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 […]

A letter from China to Korea (1948)

December 15, 2021April 6, 2021 Walter Haveman357Leave a Comment

Mail between China and Korea after 1945 was not common, therefore it was difficult for collectors to get hold of such covers. Business contacts did not yet exist; the missionaries were paralyzed by war and civil wars and they lacked support from their home countries. It is probably no coincidence that the letter shown below […]

Missionary Correspondence in Colonial Korea: McCune – Hunt Letters

November 4, 2021October 11, 2021 James H. Grayson335Leave a Comment

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 […]

Christmas Seals from the Japanese Colonial Era

September 8, 2021March 5, 2021 James H. Grayson6682 Comments

The use of Christmas Seals in Korea began with the work of the Methodist medical missionaries Dr. Sherwood Hall (Korean name Ha Rak 賀樂, 1893-1991) and his wife Dr. Marian Bottomley Hall (1896-1991) who were based in the city of Haeju (海州) in South Hwanghae Province (黃海道), now in North Korea.

Missionary Mr. Underwood

August 18, 2021September 3, 2021 Dr. Joel Lee6672 Comments

Mr. Horace Grant Underwood (July 19, 1859 – Oct. 12, 1916) was the first Presbyterian missionary for the Korean mission from the Presbyterian church U. S. A.. In Korea he is well known as just “Missionary Underwood”, and his Korean name is “Won Doo-Woo” (원 두우; 元杜尤). Mr. Underwood was born July 19, 1859, […]

Dr. Hall’s Indian Christmas Seals (Part III)

May 29, 2021January 1, 2021 Steven Zwillinger6921 Comment

(Part 3 of 3) When Dr. Hall was forced to leave Korea in 1941, he went to India where he continued his missionary work and started to build a TB seal program as he had done in Korea. And, like in Korea, he was successful in building a TB seal program in India. Indian TB […]

Dr. Hall’s Indian Christmas Seals (Part II)

April 24, 2021January 1, 2021 Steven Zwillinger467Leave a Comment

(Part 2 of 3) When Dr. Hall was forced to leave Korea in 1941, he went to India where he continued his missionary work and started to build a TB seal program as he had done in Korea. And, like in Korea, he was successful in building a TB seal program in India. Indian TB […]

Dr. Hall’s Indian Christmas Seals (Part I)

March 20, 2021January 1, 2021 Steven Zwillinger668Leave a Comment

While visiting the Korean Stamp Society website, I noticed that the Society is considering a special edition of KP to include Dr. Sherwood Hall’s TB seal program in Korea through 1940. This piqued my interest as one of my interests is Dr. Hall’s TB seal program in India from 1941 through the early 1950s. When […]

Beautiful Korean Silk/Wood Christmas Card from the late 1920’s

March 13, 2021February 10, 2021 Robert (Bob) Finder763Leave a Comment

Recently I was attracted to a “wood” Korean Christmas Card mailed from Korea to Florida, USA in the late 1920’s. I had never seen one like this before and bought it. When I received it, I was pleasantly surprised how beautiful it was, when I actually saw the card itself. The wooden card has a […]

Story of L’Abbe Pierre Pasquier

February 10, 2021March 5, 2021 Dr. Joel Lee7221 Comment

The Catholic Church in Korea started when Yi Sŭnghun came back from China after he had been baptized. He met Yi Pyŏk and Chŏng Yakchŏn, and together they built a faith community. The community remained viable even after small and large persecutions (about 10) during the almost 100 year long period starting with the Sinhae […]

Special edition of Korean Philately on Christmas Seals 1932-1952 proposed

November 4, 2020March 5, 2021 Robert (Bob) Finder954Leave a Comment

Korea Stamp Society’s (KSS) current Publisher/Webmaster, Ivo Spanjersberg, and I are working on issuing a special edition of the Korean Philately (KP). Originally we believed we would prepare a book or ”monogram” that would just cover Dr. Sherwood Hall’s Tuberculosis/Christmas and New Year’s seal program that occurred during the period of 1932-1940.

More About Dr. Hall’s Stamp Collecting And Missionaries in Korea

July 18, 2020June 12, 2020 Robert (Bob) Finder1242Leave a Comment

It is encouraging that we are receiving so much new information from members of the Korea Stamp Society (KSS) and readers of the KSS website. In particular, I have been amazed at all the new information we have been receiving about Dr. Hall and other missionaries in Korea prior to WWII. This article is an […]

1913 SPG Postcard showing missionary residence

June 20, 2020June 12, 2020 James H. Grayson10082 Comments

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 […]

Christian Literature Society correspondence illustrates different surface mail cachets

January 28, 2020January 21, 2020 James H. Grayson1196Leave a Comment

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 […]

New Discovery of Two Very Rare Covers with Dr. Hall’s Unissued 1940 Korea Tuberculosis/Christmas Seals

January 23, 2020April 26, 2020 Robert (Bob) Finder1370Leave a Comment

There was recently an exciting find by a reader of the Korea Stamp Society’s (KSS) webpage. Mr. Edwin Burgoyne, who has been researching information on old covers that were part of his wife’s (Alison) missionary family’s collection, read the articles about Dr. Sherwood Hall’s TB/Christmas and New Year’s seals. He especially noticed the article about […]

Methodist mission address “IPO Box 1182” in Seoul

January 15, 2020September 15, 2019 Ivo Spanjersberg962Leave a Comment

From the late 1800s a lot of Christian missionary activity took place in Korea. Given that these people usually were very well educated they inevitably wrote home. Many of these letters including the envelopes in which they were sent were saved by the recipients. In recent years with the passing of many of the post-World […]

1963 cover from important Methodist medical missionary educator

January 10, 2020December 23, 2019 James H. Grayson8992 Comments

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 […]

Australian missionary postal history shows early links with Korea

December 22, 2019November 30, 2019 James H. Grayson10541 Comment

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 […]

Postal card shows early 1960s Korean missionary history

December 11, 2019December 9, 2019 KP Online Editor1450Leave a Comment

On auction websites a lot of 1950s-1980s covers and postal cards show up with recognizable names on them. These items are not just Korean postal history, they show more than just that: they show Korean history. One example is the card shown in this article.