Korea (South) 1956 – Kyongju
Observatory
Kyongju Observatory, already encountered on
Korean stamps from 1946 and 1948, makes its third and final appearance in our
list of oldest astro stamps with this design issued in late
1956 (although the Stanley Gibbons Simplified Catalogue lists
it under 1955). It was part of a series depicting traditional
Korean subjects.
There are several subtly different later
versions of this stamp (and other members of the series) which
can cause confusion. Since the later versions were all released
in 1957 they are strictly outside the range of our survey of
oldest astro stamps, but I shall note them here for the sake of
completeness. Firstly, this identical design was re-released in
early 1957 on different paper and with a zig-zag watermark (the
1956 issue had no watermark); the SG number of the 1957 reissue
is 282. A version with a face value of 100 h was released later
in 1957 (SG 284). This 100 h stamp was itself reissued at the
end of 1957 with different paper and a different watermark (SG
316).
The Korean Stamp Society’s
website proved vital in
clarifying the differences between the various versions. You
can see them also on the Korean Stamp Portal.
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