Sunday 18 March 2018

New discovery of one of the most important postage due covers.



New discovery of one of the most important postage due covers


Hello peeps its been a while since my last blog but I have been a
 little busy working through my Chinese stamp collection. One thing
that I did want to share with you is an amazing find of a new 
discovery if one of the most important postage due covers. 
So here goes! 
One of the great joys of stamp collecting is the excitement of finding 
something new. 
You just never know what might turn up!
A really extraordinary item was recently found by staff at Stanley Gibbons 
Auctions, 
while looking through a box of material which was brought into the Strand 
for valuation. After turning over the usual nondescript hand written fdcs, 
kiloware and childhood 
albums, a spectacular large (350x230mm) brown envelope from Singapore
 was found, which warranted  rather closer inspection.


POSTAGE DUE COVER
POSTAGE DUE COVER

Addressed to Major P.J. Hills in Singapore, the envelope had originally
 been posted 
without stamps, and now bore a right marginal block of  twenty (2×10) of 
the Malayan
 Postal Union 1951-63 2c deep slate-blue Postage Due with the ERROR 
IMPERFORATE HORIZONTALLY, comprising TEN (!) of the vertical pairs 
listed in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue as  SG D15ac, of which just 
one unique example (a strip of three on piece) 
had previously been recorded ! The envelope also has a block of ten of the 
1964 M.P.U. 10c on 8c yellow-orange Postage Due (SG D29), with both 
blocks neatly cancelled by the “TANGLIN SINGAPORE” cds dated 21 May 65. 
1.00pm. At the upper right of the 
envelope is an untimed “TANGLIN A SINGAPORE 10” cds of the same day, 
presumably applied on despatch or delivery.
The envelope was addressed by Mrs Hills (who must have forgotten to 
stamp it) to her husband, and has been in the family’s possession
 ever since – a little matter of53 years. This amazing new discovery,
which must rank as one of the most important  Postage Due covers 
of the entire British Commonwealth, is being offered for sale in 
the SGA  Public Auction at 399 Strand on 26 April, and worldwide
interest is anticipated, especially from the Far East.
Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail




Sunday 31 May 2015

Inverted Stamp of China.



A Rare Inverted Chinese Stamp. Do you have it?

 
 
1915 $2.00 Blue and Black




Historical background information.

 

The Beijing Guozijian
 
The Beijing Guozijian was the imperial college (Guozijian) during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and the last Guozijian of China. Most of the Beijing Guozijian's buildings were built during the Ming Dynasty and it remains an important heritage site in China. During the Hundred Days' Reform of the Qing Dynasty, the education and administration of education functions of Guozijian was mainly replaced by the Imperial Capital University (also translated as Imperial University of Peking), later known as Peking University. In 1905, Guozijian was finally shut down.
The whole complex of Guozijian faces south, and it has a total building area of more than 10,000 square meters or 107,639 square feet.


Sir Robert Hart, 1st Baronet, IMCS 1863-1911
Chinese Customs"
Hart as caricatured in
Vanity Fair, December 1894
Guozijian, often translated into English as, the Imperial Academy or Imperial College, was the national central institute of learning in ancient Chinese dynasties. It was the highest institute of learning in China's traditional educational system. Emperors in imperial China would also frequently visit the Guozijian to read Confucian classics to thousands of students.

A policy of isolation was forcibly ended in the 19th century by the Opium War and the subsequent opening of treaty ports; several nations opened foreign post offices from 1844 on. This expanded to involve dozens of cities, mostly on the coast, along the Yangtze River, and in the far south. Shanghai organized its own Shanghai local post in 1865. In the same year, the Englishman Robert Hart developed a mail service for the Imperial Maritime Customs, initially to carry consular mail to and from treaty ports. This service was opened to the public on 1 May 1878, and China's first postage stamps, the "Large Dragons"  were issued to handle payment. The stamps were inscribed "CHINA" in both Latin and Chinese characters, and denominated in candareens.

Large Dragon Stamps 1st May 1878

Initially, all mail to foreign destinations went through Shanghai, but by 1882 there were twelve post offices. On 20 March 1896, an edict directed that the Customs Post become the Imperial Postal Service effective 1 January 1897; the Min Hsin Chu was shut down, as well as the Shanghai local post, and postal system adopted cents and dollars as the units of currency.

Through the first half of 1897, new stamps were unavailable, and so the existing stock was surcharged in cents, with several variants distinguished by philatelists. Revenue stamps were surcharged as well.

The first new stamps, inscribed IMPERIAL CHINESE POST went on sale 16 August 1897. The twelve values, ranging from 1/2c to $5, were lithographed in Japan. The low values depicted a dragon, the middle values a carp, and the dollar values a wild goose. The paper used for these stamps had a watermark in the form of a yin-yang symbol.

Imperial Chinese Postage Stamps


The attractive Arch of the Hall of Classics design used on the dollar values of the Junk series was printed in sheets of 50 (10x5) in the Peking printings. Only one sheet of this error was found in the Hankow post office, making a total of only 50 such stamps originally printed.



 
#237a, 1915 $2.00 Hall of Classics, first Peking printing, Center Inverted, a marvelous example of this famous inverted center error, being the remarkable top sheet-margin plate no. "1" single (also showing a portion of the imprint in the selvage), possessing strong bright colors and highly detailed impressions, full original gum that has only been lightly hinged, a trivial translucent spot in top right margin mentioned for accuracy only, fine. The attractive Arch of the Hall of Classics design used on the dollar values of the Junk series was printed in sheets of 50 (10x5) in the Peking printings. Only one sheet of this error was found in the Hankow post office, making a total of only 50 such stamps originally printed and, of course, this is unique as the sole plate number single from the sheet. This is only the second example of this rarity we have ever had the pleasure to offer in our auctions. A fresh example with slightly irregular perforations at left realized $26,500.00, plus the buyer's premium, in our September 2005 Collector's Series Sale (Chan #245a; $22,000.00).
 


This stamp actually realised at an online auction in 2005 - $60,000

So keep a look out in your albums you may have one!!!

Happy Stamping peeps!!

Friday 29 May 2015

Chinese Stamps not listed in Stanley Gibbons...can anyone help?



Let me present a little bit of background information...


In my last blog I quickly spoke about the confusion I was having whilst trying to identify the stamps in my Chinese album. This led me to to write a quick blog on stamps that have had a surch applied to them, how to identify them using the Stanley Gibbons catalogue and reinforce the notion to other novice stamp collectors, that stamps with a surch applied to them are catalogued differently to the stamps that do not have a surch. Sounds simple now, but took me a number of hours to fathom this out as the surch is often on a different page to the picture of the stamp that is being referenced. 

Check out my last blog here:

After some frustrating rubbing out (my advise would be to use a pencil when writing in the SG numbers peeps its easier to erase when you get it wrong!), I went on to re-reference the stamps. 

This however did not solve another stumbling block! I was still unable to find a couple of series of stamps that was not listed in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue. Of course this could either be a good or a bad thing. A good thing because I may have an unlisted series of stamps and thus very valuable. ( I am as ever an eternal optimist!) Or indeed it could be a bad thing as they may be some type of forgery, however I find this entirely unlikely as it was my grandfather who assembled the collection and as he was the one who was stationed on the Chinese border whilst serving with the British Army and working next to the mail room!

So I know that he collected the majority of these stamps first hand. So surely they have to be real, just not listed in this catalogue.

Identifying the stamps


So what do I do now, well I emailed Stanley Gibbons for an answer and a couple of days later I did receive a rather unhelpful reply, which said that the series I was looking at was a series that I had already discounted. So I quickly flicked through the pages of the catalogue to make sure that I had not made an tumultuous error. 

To my surprise, the images of the elusive series of stamps that I had sent through to the experts had in actual fact been incorrectly identified by them, at their end. I know this as what they were suggesting was another series of stamps that I had already correctly identified on another page of my album. 

The elusive series of stamps.




Frustratingly I had to go back to the drawing board.

Scanning down the email there was another suggestion. It said that I may want to purchase another book. Yes another book!! But this one focuses on all Chinese stamps. This reference catalogue is called Part 17 China and funnily enough this is written by the good people at Stanley Gibbons!! Well we all have to make money.

Part 17 China



Anyway I have bitten the bullet and gone to Amazon and found it. It currently is wheeling it's way to my address and hopefully it will reference the sets of stamps that I am looking for. If not then I am going to have to throw it out to a number of the communities on Google plus and hopefully there will be someone on there who will be able to tell me what they are, or a better place to start looking for the answers.

So come on Mr postman, I am waiting!!
Mmmm, I wonder if there will be any stamps affixed to the front of the package which are worth keeping...

Happy stamping!!! And wait out peeps....