In order to investigate the effect of loading rate on the strength and the absorbed energy of paper honeycomb cores, a series of compression tests were carried out at quasi-static and dynamic rates. The specimens used are polypropylene(PP) and polyester(PET) thermoplastic honeycomb cores, which are usually called paper honeycomb cores. It was found that the peak stress and average crush stress increased with the increase of loading rate and was especially remarkable in the results of the PP core. The absorbed energy obtained from dynamic tests was also greater than that obtained at quasi-static rates. It was ascertained that the polyvinyl chloride(PVC) long tube was quite useful as a device for measuring stress waves in dynamic compression tests, if the characteristics of the wave propagation in the PVC tube are obtained by preliminary wave propagation experiments, specifically to determine the rate of decrease in amplitude and/or the propagation velocity.