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first issues > countries > shanghai

Shanghai

August 1865

See Chinese Treaty Ports

  Chinese Port  

shangplu
shangsing
 
Candareens in plural
Candareens in singular
  
  Sharghai 2ca Sharghai 2ca  

imperf, no wmk, typographed
Printed in Shanghai

Description Paper Scott# SG# Mi# Y&T#  
Candareens in plural, antique numerals, Roman I in "I6"
2 candareens black wove 1 1      
2ca black pelure 1a 1a      
4ca yellow wove 2 3      
4ca yellow pelure 2a 3a      
8ca green wove 3 4      
8ca yellow-green wove 3a 4a      
16ca scarlet wove 4 5      
16ca vermillion wove 4a 5a      
16ca scarlet pelure 4b        

This is a complex issue with stamp differences in paper, fonts, currency (singular or plural) and colours running in the four original values from Sc1 to Sc41 in two years. Remarkably, Gibbons' initial listing seems to match, starting with “antique numerals, candareens in plural and Roman I in I6”, although Gibbons goes into more detail on the Chinese characters, hence no corresponding SG2

Mackay [1] writes, “Although China was the last of the major world powers to adopt stamps (1878), these convenient pieces of paper had been introduced by foreign merchants in the various Treaty Ports and the British colony of Hong Kong in the previous decade. In 1865 the international community in Shanghai organised a local Post Office and introduced a series of adhesive stamps featuring a dragon motif. The first stamps were type-set locally in values fron 2 to 16 candareens. Two versions exist, showing the name of the currency in plural and singular forms. The dragon continued to grace all the stamps of Shanghai down to the closing years of the century, but smaller and neater designs, lithographed by Nissen and Parker of London, were adopted in 1866 with the value rendered in cents. A similar set, in candareens, appeared a year later. ”

Sources: JM1 [1], ScC, SGP17.

Images from Robert A. Siegel Auctions.

FI ref: 122 Page credit: NB

Page created 26 Jan 2016 Page updated 19-Jun-2017