The Rebirth of Industry in the Republic of Korea 1955

I've always liked this rough cut South Korean stamp with its strong central motif of a germinating seed cupped in a pair of hands with industrial smoke stack chimneys and a huge dam set against the natural landscape of mountains - representing here the Rebirth of Industry in the country. The landscape looks rather like the historically important Heaven Lake of Baekdu Mountain, where the father of Dangun - the founder Gojoseon - is said to have descended from heaven. Although it falls in North Korea it is seen as the place of Korean ancestral origin. If anybody can add more information about this please feel free to leave a comment!

The stamp was designed by Chung Sung-cha, issued in 1955 and printed on watermarked paper - clearly visible wave-lines - by the Government Printing & Mint Agency of the Republic of Korea. The print run was 3,000,000 so it is of no great value or scarcity today although it still has a story to tell...

The name of the country written across the top of the stamp - as was the case with all stamps issued between 1953 and 1955 - is Tae-han Min-gook Oo-jong (Republic of Korea Postal Administration). From 1956 onwards the name would be changed back again to the version used on earlier stamps - Tae-han Min-gook Oop-yoe (Republic of Korea Stamp).

Issued as a definitive stamp the mauve version was the highest value of a set of four with a face value of 50 Hwan. The remaining values in the set are the 10 Hwan (brown), 15 Hwan (violet) and 20 Hwan (blue).