With the end of World War II,forty years of Japan´s rule over Korea ended. The north was occupied by Russia,who established a communist regime: North-Korea. The south was ruled by an US-American military government,what lead to the establishment of the Republic of Korea (South-Korea) in 1948. The early years of South Korea were a rather chaotic time.It went from chaotic to catastrophic with the start of the Korean War on June 25th,1950.When the war came to an end in July 1953,nearly all of South Korea layed in ruins. The stamps of that time are often of a rather primitive make,but they have a certain charm,at least to me. I do not have all stamps of that periode,some mostly expensive ones are missing,but I will show,what I can. Japanese stamps,overprinted in Won currency (1 Won = 100 Cheun), issued Feb.1st,1946. Five more un-issued values exist.
Overprint errors. Apart from the shown,two more exist: 10 Ch. on 8 Sen and 20 Ch. on 27 Sen. The printing quantities are small: from 100 for 5 Ch. on 40 Sen to 300 for 30 Ch. on 6 Sen.
upper stamp: first anniversary of liberation from japanese rule, issuedAug.15th,1946. lower stamp: resumption of postal services to the USA,issued Sept.9th,1946.
Three values of the above defintives were also issued perforated 11. While the 1 Won is about equal to the rouletted version,the 2 and the 5 Won are rather expensive. 2 Won about 40 x and the 5 Won 6 x more than the rouletted stamps.
air-mails: 50 W. issued Oct.1st,1947,others June 7th,1949; Issued for the inauguration of air-mail services (50 Won), same to the US (150 Won). The printing in green was the result of an official error.It was decided to issue stamps of both colours at the same time.
A significant plate-damage,all major catologues list: "KORFA", here in pair with a normal stamp. The "KORFA" error occurs on position 34 of pains of 50. As the printing quantity of 4 Millions was arather high one for this periode, about 80.000 error stamps could exist.However I do not know,wether the error occured throughout the whole printing.
Meeting of the first National Assembly,issued July 1st,1948. There are two types of this stamp: with point after 5 of 1948.5.31,upper stamp no point afte 5,lower stamp no point enlarged
