darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Feb 3, 2019 22:11:05 GMT
I lived and worked in Busan, South Korea from November 1988 until January 1997. Two things were important to me when I hit the ground in 1988...learn the language and start building my Korea stamp collection. At the tail end of my stay there I had joined the Busan Philatelic Club which met in a public meeting space in the downtown Busan main post office. The following are the meeting announcements that were sent to my work address every month. I treasured these as many times they were sent to correspond with the issuance of a new stamp hence were first day covers with nicely struck commemorative cancels. Let me know if you have any questions. I am posting them in no particular order.
|
|
darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Feb 3, 2019 22:11:39 GMT
|
|
darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Feb 3, 2019 22:12:18 GMT
|
|
darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Feb 3, 2019 22:12:51 GMT
|
|
darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Feb 3, 2019 22:13:30 GMT
|
|
renden
Member
Posts: 8,630
What I collect: World W collector with ++ interests in BNA (Canada etc) and USA
|
Post by renden on Feb 3, 2019 22:24:30 GMT
Quite fascinating covers and "history" of your journey - please show us more (scans and text) ! René
|
|
darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Feb 3, 2019 22:31:59 GMT
Quite fascinating covers and "history" of your journey - please show us more (scans and text) ! René renden, this is all I have of this correspondence but I do have a few more fdcs and other covers I can post at some point. I also was thinking about starting a Korean postal cards thread at some point as I have a number of these as well.
|
|
firstfrog2013
Member
Posts: 3,276
What I collect: BNA Liberia St Pierre U.S. Bolivia Turkey
|
Post by firstfrog2013 on Feb 3, 2019 22:47:13 GMT
I feel less than smart but to me it looks like three different addressees.So much for my Korean.
|
|
darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Feb 3, 2019 22:59:38 GMT
I feel less than smart but to me it looks like three different addressees.So much for my Korean. I worked at the Paradise Beach Hotel in Busan and all of them are to the same address though a couple of them exclude the name of the hotel and only include the P.O. Box and then others have variant spellings of my name, either fully spelled out in Korean or only my surname plus honorific. In the case of the first, hand-written announcement, this was for our annual banquet, though the person spelled my last name incorrrectly and in that case as well, did not include the hotel name, only the P.O. Box.
|
|
renden
Member
Posts: 8,630
What I collect: World W collector with ++ interests in BNA (Canada etc) and USA
|
Post by renden on Feb 3, 2019 23:01:20 GMT
darkormexPostal cards are not my "hobby" but I always take a look what other members show us - I wish more history of S Korea (with stamps) - Thanks René
|
|
Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,708
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
|
Post by Ryan on Feb 3, 2019 23:06:35 GMT
The calligraphy on that first cover is very nice!
Ryan
|
|
Philatarium
Member
Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 1,028
What I collect: Primarily focused on Japan, but lots of other material catches my eye as well ...
Member is Online
|
Post by Philatarium on Feb 4, 2019 0:47:34 GMT
Darrin, thanks for showing these! It's great that you were able to hang on to these over the years. (I'm not sure that I would've been so fortunate.) There is a blue stamp(?) on several of the envelopes. Does that indicate a level of service? (I'm inferring based upon the "1" on one of them.) I would love to see the postal cards, so please feel free to scan and share whenever it's convenient for you! The calligraphy on that first cover is very nice! Ryan I thought the same thing when I saw it!
|
|
darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Feb 4, 2019 1:42:32 GMT
Darrin, thanks for showing these! It's great that you were able to hang on to these over the years. (I'm not sure that I would've been so fortunate.) There is a blue stamp(?) on several of the envelopes. Does that indicate a level of service? (I'm inferring based upon the "1" on one of them.) I would love to see the postal cards, so please feel free to scan and share whenever it's convenient for you! The calligraphy on that first cover is very nice! Ryan I thought the same thing when I saw it! Philatarium, they are express mail stickers. In small Korean script underneath each symbol it states, 빠른우편, or express mail. On one sticker there is the number "1" and on the other there is the Korean letter, "우" which is pronounced "oo" and is also the universal symbol for mail or post office. You can sometimes see it on post office doors or on other postally related materials in Korea. Many words related to stamps or postal matters will begin with this letter. For example, 우편 = mail, 우편 열차 = mail train, 우체국 = post office, and, of course, 우표 = stamp. What I don't understand is why one blue sticker has the number 1 and the other has 우, since both of them do the same job, express mail. My guess is that it further designates a postal zone or a different express status.
|
|
Philatarium
Member
Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 1,028
What I collect: Primarily focused on Japan, but lots of other material catches my eye as well ...
Member is Online
|
Post by Philatarium on Feb 4, 2019 3:18:46 GMT
Thanks for the explanation, Darrin! Much appreciated! 👍
|
|
|
Post by outremer01 on Aug 18, 2019 19:06:37 GMT
Nice to see covers with Korean script, Darrin, especially with stamps on! I lived/worked in Korea for a year 2000/2001 and was based with the RoKAF at Seosan near the West coast. I hardly ever saw covers with stamps, but I started an account with Korea post through the post office on the base, and I soon ended up with sheets of every issues, souvenir sheets and year-books. I also had gifts of stamps, FDCs and other ephemera from Air Force personnel. Unfortunately the road system from Seosan to the capital back then was such that I was rarely able to escape to Seoul to explore stamp dealers, even if I had known where to go. The Shilla hotel, where I stayed on the way out to, or back from, UK trips had a (expensive) gift shop with stamp sets, so that helped to expand my collection. I was so pleased to get an indecipherable Korean cover with a stamp on, that I showed it to the squadron Warrant Officer, who said "Why you pleased - is parking ticket!". He was unhappy, because that meant detailing an NCO to go with me to sort it out. Koreans could pay direct debit through their phones but I had no such facility so a personal visit was required, with (almost always) consequential VIP treatment and much practicing of English by all involved! ("Oh, English gentleman!") I was intrigued by the pot of glue always to be found on the counter in Korean Post Offices - apparently the high humidity during part of the year meant possible loosening or detachment, hence the glue. Here are two covers that I sent home during a "pre-posting" visit (stamps procured and attached by the hotel receptionist):
|
|
darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,132
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
|
Post by darkormex on Aug 18, 2019 20:01:00 GMT
Nice to see covers with Korean script, Darrin, especially with stamps on! I lived/worked in Korea for a year 2000/2001 and was based with the RoKAF at Seosan near the West coast. I hardly ever saw covers with stamps, but I started an account with Korea post through the post office on the base, and I soon ended up with sheets of every issues, souvenir sheets and year-books. I also had gifts of stamps, FDCs and other ephemera from Air Force personnel. Unfortunately the road system from Seosan to the capital back then was such that I was rarely able to escape to Seoul to explore stamp dealers, even if I had known where to go. The Shilla hotel, where I stayed on the way out to, or back from, UK trips had a (expensive) gift shop with stamp sets, so that helped to expand my collection. I was so pleased to get an indecipherable Korean cover with a stamp on, that I showed it to the squadron Warrant Officer, who said "Why you pleased - is parking ticket!". He was unhappy, because that meant detailing an NCO to go with me to sort it out. Koreans could pay direct debit through their phones but I had no such facility so a personal visit was required, with (almost always) consequential VIP treatment and much practicing of English by all involved! ("Oh, English gentleman!") I was intrigued by the pot of glue always to be found on the counter in Korean Post Offices - apparently the high humidity during part of the year meant possible loosening or detachment, hence the glue. Here are two covers that I sent home during a "pre-posting" visit (stamps procured and attached by the hotel receptionist): My guess is you were in an area of the country where there were, at that time still, not a lot of non-Koreans so it was probably something of a moment for them when you walked in and the locals got to interact with you and practice their english skills (or lack thereof). The glue thing is pretty ubiquitous even now. We were back in 2018 visiting family and being tourists for a change and there was still a bottle of glue in the local post office branch in the apartment complex where we had rented a room through Airbnb. I have always found that there is not a thick adhesive layer on postage stamps that are issued by the Korean postal service. There also seems to be a cultural objection to licking stamps...so you might also see, in addition to the bottle of glue, a small container for water with a moist foam pad in it that customers can use to moisten their stamps. There is, or was, an underground shopping center that use to be a stamp collecting hub in Seoul. There were quite a number of stores more or less in the same area. I had only been there once back when I lived in Korea in the early and mid-90s. I suspect, however, like here in the US, brick and mortar stamp stores have virtually disappeared. I found one still open in Busan when we visited in 2018. At the time I lived in Korea I still ignored covers as a collecting option in the philatelic realm and I regret that now. I have a few commercial covers but not many and I really wish I had bothered to save more of them...alas...my regrets are many.
|
|