Supporting Philatelists Since 1952
The booklet was issued by the Ministry of Communications for the North Hamgyong Post Office, as part of the country-wide 10th anniversary of the Liberation commemoration, in August 1955. A set of commemorative stamps (all the stamps are perf 11), a postal stationery envelope and an extensive set of commemorative photographic postcards were produced for […]
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It all started with curiosity. I knew that I had a lot of stamps but didn’t really knew them. Like a normal person, the first thing that came across my mind was is it worth any money? With the help of Mr. Chen Yi Fu and Ivo Spanjersberg, I began to understand the value and […]
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Democratic Peoples’ Republic Korea (DPRK, North Korea) changed the face value of stamps under a new postage order from August 1 Juche 91 (2002). The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications of the DPRK took a measure that those previously issued 91 postage stamps were overprinted with the new denomination to be used for a certain […]
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In the September 2019 KSS Newsletter I showed a stamp from an Ebay auction. The stamp itself was not remarkable: a very common Japanese 8 sen stamp from the first Showa series (Sakura 229, Scott 265, 1939) with an overprint showing a “Rose of Sharon”, the Korean empire/kingdom flower showed to these days on South […]
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As some readers of the KSS website know, I have not been interested in most North Korean (DPR) stamp issues. However, the peace talks between South Korea and North Korea, and the even more recent nuclear talks between North Korea and the USA, have caused some worldwide interest in philatelic material commemorating these talks. I […]
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There is an irony in the fact that the reprint of, arguably, the rarest of all North Korean stamps, the 1948 Labor Law issue, SG N11, is among the most common of these often despised reprints, both in perforated and imperforated condition. It is also among the small number of such reprints of which postally […]
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Is the current market condition a buyer’s market or seller’s market? The price one pays for a stamp or stamps depends on the condition and rarity. Also, supply and demand dictate current prices in the market place. The current condition of the market is a buyer’s market. The flood of North Korean stamps which started […]
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The picture below is the 1962 Scott #429 / KSC #393 imperforated 10 jeon “Launch of Soviet Manned Rockets Vostok 3&4”. The KSC does mention an imperforated version. However, the Scott catalog does not mention an imperforated version of this stamp. I wonder how many of our readers have seen or possess this stamp?
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The Pyongyang published Korean Postal Stationery & Maxicard Catalogue of 1999 was an eye-opener for most of us in revealing the richness of postal stationery issued there over the years. It followed on Todd’s pioneering Catalogue of North Korean Postal Stationery 1947-1961 of 1997, and some listings in this Journal (Korean Philately, 34, No.2, 4-9; […]
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Watching the endless stream of opportunistic issues, largely directed at gullible collectors, coming out from North Korea year after year, it is a pleasant philatelic experience to encounter something unexpected from this source. It has, of course, occurred in the recent past with the discovery of the domestic paper varieties – the ‘yellow paper’ issues […]
Continue Reading Internet is where most people buy and sell stamps today. In the months leading up to the February 2019 US – DPRK summit in Hanoi, there were massive unloads of North Korean stamps on the internet. This presented a good entry point for beginning collectors like myself to acquire some early North Korean stamps. However, […]
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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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Sun Tzu was a Chinese general, military strategist, writer, and philosopher who lived in the Eastern Zhou period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, a widely influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. Aside from […]
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Stamps with different colors were used to indicate different denominations until multicolored stamps appeared along with the development of color printing techniques. The majority of modern stamps are still of a single color design. In the early days of printing stamps, inks were made up in batches as needed and the colors were inconsistent. In […]
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It has been known for some time that the DPRK had numerous stamps designed that were numbered in the Korea Stamp Corporation’s DPRK Stamp Catalogue. Some of these items were illustrated as unissued stamps, but other “others,” until this past year, were not illustrated at all. Why they were not illustrated (though numbered) prior to […]
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(Reader’s question/Q&A) KSS member Kimmo has a question regarding this stamp: “I have a North Korean stamp from 1976 (SG N 1555; Mi 1527) with a color shift (red 3 mm right and 1 mm up from the correct alignment). I would like to know if members are able to provide me additional information on […]
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In September 2018 KSS member Yi Yong Suk asked a question regarding his set of 1959 “Peaceful Reunification of Korea” stamps (Scott 175a / A141; KSC 151). One of our members, Kevin Mackeown, sent one cancelled example showing the imperforated stamps were real and then sent more examples used on cover. Now KSS member Florian […]
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(Reader’s question/Q&A) KSS member Robert Finder has a following question regarding this block of four + two partial stamps. These North Korean stamps are listed as Scott394 (A331)/KSC353 (issued 13 March 1962).
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The North Korean Government performed a drastic monetary devaluation on July 1, 2002, having dramatic influence on both domestic and international postal rates. However, how major the changes were and when they became effective were not known until several months after the changes. The purpose of this article is to convey the information obtained from […]
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In September 2018 KSS member Yi Yong Suk asked a question regarding his set of 1959 “Peaceful Reunification of Korea” stamps (Scott 175a / A141; KSC 151). He himself was wondering whether these stamps were real. A good way of establishing this is to see if the (exact same version of such) stamps are known […]
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