In a drive to raise and promote awareness of Spanish philately in Asian countries, the Correos philatelic service attended the largest international philatelic exhibition of 2025, PHILAKOREA 2025 World Stamp Exhibition, once again featuring a variable value stamp issue.
This major event had initially been scheduled for 2024, coinciding with the 140th anniversary of the creation of the Korean postal service. However, Korea Post had to postpone the exhibition for a year because of budget difficulties. The entire process in preparing and planning for this major event is well set out in various articles published on the website of the Korean Philatelic Federation and provides a magnificent analysis of what it entails in organising an event of this magnitude today, from doubts about its viability and acceptance by local collectors to financing difficulties and organisational and logistical challenges.
In any case, I can reveal that PHILAKOREA 2025 was ultimately a success with the organisers already thinking about a possible PHILAKOREA 2034, which would commemorate the 150th anniversary of the postal administration.
Under the slogan ‘CONNECT – Stamps, Connect the World’, PHILAKOREA 2025 was held from September 17th to 21st at the COEX Magok Exhibition Centre; a large conference and exhibition centre in the Gangnam district, west of Seoul. It was hosted and organized by Korea Post, in collaboration with the Korean Philatelic Federation.
Following the exhibitions in 1984, 1994, 2002 and 2014, it was the fifth world philatelic exhibition held in South Korea.
As regards ATM issues relating to South Korea there is the Australian special “Philakorea” imprint on the “Endangered Species” definitive series released in 1994. In 2014, the IAR company installed three “Post & Go” postal kiosks at the exhibition, with special issues bearing the “Philakorea 2014 World Stamp Expo” imprint from the United Kingdom (see article and VARIABLE 34) and Jersey (article). In 2018, Cartor installed a demonstrator kiosk at the Korean Stamp Exhibition, with a special sample issue (article and VARIABLE 51).
Our website and this article in particular are mainly dedicated to the study of variable value stamp issues. You can read general reviews of this great exhibition on many other pages. It is worth noting that over the five days, the event attracted 43,000 visitors. Unlike the usual (always inflated) estimates provided by the organisers, this figure is accurate because all visitors had to register before entering.
Korea Post issued a special collection of three stamp sheets and a series of pre-franked postcards in very limited quantities, which were sold each day in small quantities with purchase limits per buyer until sold out.
Correos – Spanish Post was one of the twenty postal administrations attending PHILAKOREA 2025, some of which were represented by philatelic agencies and dealers. The rise of online commerce and the high cost of participating and taking a stand has meant that fewer and fewer international philatelic dealers and services are participating in such exhibitions. Even so, as I mentioned at the beginning, Correos continues with its clear commitment to international promotion, regularly attending some of the main philatelic events around the world.
And as in previous international events, the Correos philatelic service released a special commemorative ATM issue for PHILAKOREA 2025, which stood out for its excellent design amongst the huge range of special editions of all kinds produced by other postal administrations for these events.
José Carlos Alonso’s interesting design merges the national flowers of both countries, South Korea and Spain, into a single kaleidoscopic image: the Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) or Mugunghwa (무궁화 – main image of the article), and the red carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus).
The video below shows the transition from one flower to another through a kaleidoscopic effect. The image used in the ATM design appears at 08:22.
Following on from the designs for Essen (article and VARIABLE 49) and Macao (article and VARIABLE 50) in 2018, Paris in 2019 (article and VARIABLE 55), Taipei in 2023 (article), and Jakarta in 2024 (article), the issue for Seoul is the sixth international ATM issue released by Correos.
(English edition rewritten by J. Gareze – February 2026)
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