South-Korea 1st Won-periode (1946-1952)

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.

 

Liberation from japanese rule,issued May 1st,1946

 

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.

 

Definitives,rouletted;
issued Sept.10th 5 W.,10 W./Oct 5th 50 Ch.,2 W./Nov.10th 1946 1 W.;

 

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.

 

500th anniversary of the Korean Alphabet,issued Oct.9th,1946.

 

definitives,issued Aug.1st,1947
5 W. Li Jun (1823-1907),10 W. Admiral Yi Sun-sin (1548-1598)

 

Resumption of worldwide mail services.
issued Aug.1st,1947;

 

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.

 

definitives,issued April 10th,1948

 

National Elections,issued May 10th,1948.

 

London Olympics,issued June 1st,1948

 

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

 

New Constitution,issued Aug.1st,1948.

 

The Korean postal authority should have won a prize for having the world's worst perforations!

Don

 

Don,I guess there were more pressing problems in South-Korea at the time,
than nicely perforated postage-stamps ! To me the perfs are part of the
charm of these issues.

The above image I took from KPC Korean Postage Stamps Catalogue.
(The original looks a lot better than my scan !)
It was issued for the inauguration of the first president Syngman Rhee (1875-1965) on Aug.5th,1948.
Unfortunately I do not own this rather pricey stamp.

 

Well, at least, one doesn't need to worry about short or pulled perfs on these stamps.

Don

 

Establishment of the Republic of Korea,ending US military rule,issued Aug.15th,1948.


The 5 Won value exists in two types:
left stamp: type II,faint appearance of the small characters and numbers,
namely 1948 8.15. There are many other small differences to the
right stamp: type I,normal stamp,from an obviously revised stone (lithography).
The type II stamp is the rarest commemorative of South-Korea.