1 878 August 15 (the specific issue date has not been recorded so far, and it is generally believed that the earliest issue date of Dalong stamps is1year from July 24th to August 24th). The customs of the Qing government piloted postal service, and issued the first set of stamps in China for the first time. This stamp set is ***3.
1, related background:
1878, the Qing government set up postal agencies in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Yantai and Niuzhuang (Yingkou), which were subordinate to the customs. In that year, the Shanghai Customs Registration Office printed a set of three stamps with a dragon pattern. A dragon with five claws is drawn in the center of the stamp pattern, lined with clouds and waves. The color and face value of stamps are different, and the face value is calculated in silver: "one cent silver" (green, printed matter postage), "three cents silver" (red, surface mail postage) and "five cents silver" (orange, registered letter postage). This is the first set of stamps issued in China, and philatelists used to call it "Customs Dragon [1]". The words "anniversary Post Office" on the stamp are very eye-catching, and the "dragon" in the design is wide open. It is marked "China" on the top and "Canadian" on the bottom.
China's first official stamp was dragon stamp. Before the release, the Qing Customs designed three sketches of stamps: Yunlong, Pagoda and Wannian Elephant, among which Wannian Elephant is the most precious and priceless. Dalong stamps include tissue paper Dalong, wide edge Dalong and thick paper Dalong.
Circulation: about 6,543,800 pieces.
2. History:
According to common sense, stamps should be issued by the postal department, but the first set of stamps in China has an indissoluble bond with the customs.
1840 After the Opium War, the invading army seized power crazily in China, and the customs was even more controlled by foreigners. At that time, it was an Englishman Hurd who served as the General Administration of Customs and Taxation of the Qing government. Hurd is a China hand, and he has long coveted the power of China Post. Hurd had a close relationship with Li Hongzhang, so he tried his best to get the Qing government to agree to let the customs run postal services on a trial basis.
The pilot postal service of China Customs was first set up by Tianjin Customs. During the period of 1878, Detering of Tianjin Customs was appointed by the State Administration of Taxation to organize the postal service of China Customs, and he set up pilot postal services at five customs offices in Beijing, Yingkou, Yantai and Shanghai with Tianjin Customs as the center.
On March, 1878, the Tianjin customs function library, which was established by Cui Lin of Tianjin Customs and Taxation Office, was officially opened to the public. It is the first post office in China's modern history to imitate the western model. The old Customs Building, located on the bank of Haihe River, used to be the office of the Customs, where the Customs Hakodate was located, and where the first set of stamps in China was issued.
After the opening of Hakodate, in order to facilitate the sending and receiving of mail and standardize the management of postal services by customs, Detering sorted out the first set of customs stamps-Dalong stamps in the modern history of China.
According to historical records, Detering originally sent an order for customized stamps to Britain one year before the opening of Letter House, but it was finally abandoned because of the long time period. In desperation, he had to ask the Shanghai Customs Registration Office to print a batch of stamps in case of emergency.
Although it is an emergency measure, the printing quality of these stamps should still be excellent, basically according to Detering's idea at that time, without too many traces.
Step 3 design
In the Qing dynasty, stamps often had the pattern of "dragon", because "dragon" symbolized supreme authority and was the symbol of the supreme ruler. According to the research of Dalong stamp experts, people think that the designers of Dalong stamps are from China, not foreigners as previously suspected. However, it is difficult to find out the designer's name and exact date of issue, which is an "unsolved case" in the study of the early stamp issue history in China.
Step 4 print
The "Dalong" stamp is a copper plate, which is hand-carved by sculptors one by one and printed by the Shanghai Customs Registration Office. The full set of * * * has three denominations, the currency is official flat silver, 1 silver is green, 3 silver is red, and 5 silver is yellow, with different brush colors, dark and bright. Embossed printing with adhesive, perforated 12.5 degrees. It was printed and distributed in three phases (later, Dalong stamps were not printed again due to the damage of copper molds). According to the characteristics of ticket width and paper, it is divided into:
(1) tissue paper Dalong: printed on 1878- 1882, the first issue. The paper is tough and thin, slightly transparent, with a frame spacing of about 2.5 mm. In the later period, the whole paper is 25(5*5), but the whole paper is 20(5*4) with 3 cents. This issue has the largest printing volume.
(2) Broad-edged Dragon: printed in 1882, the second issue. The frame spacing is about 4.5-5.0mm, and the paper is complicated, some of which are brittle and easy to crack. Due to the size of the paper, the whole page is changed to 15(5*3), and the other two kinds of paper are printed less except for 3 cents. The new 5-cent silver ticket is rare in the world, and it is a rare boutique, commonly known as the yellow 5-point. The new ticket is an orphan Originally collected by Stone Pagoda, an American philatelist, it was once praised as "the most expensive China post in the western hemisphere" by China Stamp Association. It was purchased by Hong Kong Forest on 199 1.
(3) Thick Paper Dragon: printed on 1883- 1885, which is the third issue. The paper is thick and opaque, the frame spacing is 2.5-3.25mm, and the relationship between factor modulus wear and paper size is changed to 20(4*5 or 5*4) sheets. Because of the punching machine, there are two kinds of tooth holes, namely, smooth tooth is also called "thick paper smooth tooth dragon", and the fiber hairs around the hole are called "thick paper rough tooth dragon".
It is precisely because of the long printing time of Dalong stamps and the different sources of paper used, the paper printed in the early stage is thin and transparent, so it is called tissue paper Dalong; The second printing time is short, but the ticket spacing is increased, which is called broadside dragon; The paper used in the third issue is thicker and the spacing between stamps is reduced, which is called thick paper dragon. At the beginning of the third stage, the tooth hole was smooth, and later it became rough teeth, so it can be subdivided into smooth teeth and rough teeth. 1 is silver green, 3 is silver red and 5 is silver yellow. The color of the brush varies, and the back is coated with glue. No matter which period, the perforation of Dalong stamp is always 12.5 degrees. If it is not this degree, it can be judged that it is a fake ticket or a forged perforation.
In addition to different face values, the three Dalong stamps are also different in dragon patterns and moire patterns. 1 silver, 3-silver and 5-silver stamps were carved with 1 master mold respectively, and then became 25 independent sub-molds (the 26th stamp was made because the 1 sub-mold was accidentally damaged in the printing process of 3-silver stamps). At that time, the printing method was quite primitive, that is, before printing, 25 sub-modules were put together to form a 5×5 whole page, tied tightly and then printed. After printing a batch, release the submodule and put it aside before printing stamps of other denominations. When extra printing is needed, find the loose sub-mold and print again. Of course, the relative positions of these 25 submodules have changed. Because the method of copying sub-modules was rough in the past, after careful observation by stamp collectors, the characteristics of these 76 sub-modules have been found. According to the available data, it is found that 1 silver tickets (including sample tickets and official seals) were printed 12 times (that is, 12 different formats), with 22 silver tickets in 3 minutes and 4 silver tickets in 5 minutes/kloc-0.
Dalong stamps were first used in five cities including Tianjin and Beijing, and then gradually expanded to Yichang, Xiamen, Hankou, Wenzhou, Wuhu, Zhenjiang, Jiujiang, Ningbo and Dagu *** 14 cities. China Stamp Museum has a silver ticket of 1 Dalong 50 cents, which is sold with the English postmark of Busan. It is an orphan. In addition, the 1 Dalong 3-cent silver ticket was sold by Guangzhou Customs with a clear medallion. I guess they were asked to cancel the tickets because Dalong stamps were not officially sent to Guangzhou Customs.
According to Mian Gayi, a Spanish philatelist who works in the customs, the total print run of Dalong stamps is about 6,543,800+100,000. Since more than one hundred years have passed, most of Dalong stamps have been destroyed, and less than one tenth of the total stamps have been preserved in the philatelic industry. In each issue of Dalong stamps, the number of wide-brimmed silver tickets is the least, and the paper is very thin and easy to be damaged. Old tickets with good appearance are quite rare, and new tickets are even more precious. When ordinary philatelists collect early China tickets, they should collect three sets of 1 silver, 3 silver and 5 silver, regardless of thin paper, thick paper, wide edges or even a mixture of old and new tickets (thin paper 1 silver is easier to obtain than old tickets).
Among the Dalong stamps, the first one is a new five-cent silver ticket with a wide edge and Dalong. Dalong stamps have been issued three times since 1878: the first time was printed with tissue paper, so it was called tissue paper Dalong; When printing for the second time, the distance between sub-molds increases due to the recombination of printing plates, which widens the distance between the frame and the perforation of the seal pattern, so it is called wide-edged dragon; Because the paper used for the third printing is thicker, it is called thick paper dragon.
Among them, the second printed broadside dragon was released on February 1882. At this time, just in time for the surge in mail, the demand for stamps increased. When printing, first print a ticket with a face value of 30 cents. The paper used is small pieces of paper left over from the early printing of tissue paper Dalong stamps, and the total number of sheets is15 (5× 3); Later, when printing silver stamps with a face value of 1 min, the paper was neither thick nor thin, and the number of sheets was 25 (5× 5); Finally, a silver stamp with a face value of 5 cents was printed with thin and crisp onion skin paper made in France, with a total number of 25(5×5). Because this paper is not suitable for printing stamps, and because no other paper can be found, we have to use it to temporarily print 20 thousand stamps before printing 800 full pages. Due to the small printing volume, it was sold out in only 9 months. Moreover, this kind of stamp paper is thin and easy to crack, and it is not easy to keep. Only 100 new tickets survived.
There is only one orphan among these new tickets. This orphan was originally collected by James Starr, an American philatelist of China Post, and was once praised as "the rarest and most expensive orphan of China Post in the Western Hemisphere" by Zhou Jin Jue, a famous philatelist in China. 199 1 September, this orphan product was auctioned by Sotheby's auction house in England and bought by Hong Kong philatelist Lin for 374,000 pounds, which finally brought this first rare stamp product in China back to its hometown.
On 20 10, Lin transferred 5 cents of silver from this broadsided dragon to Ding Jinsong, a stamp collector in Shanghai.
5. Auction information
The total price of 5 cents silver for the Great Long Kuan Blade is 374,000 pounds (auction price 199 1 year).
Dalong 1 cent silver straight double missing tooth of HK$ 592,000 (auction price 1996).
Dalong 3-cent silver straight double missing tooth old ticket 565438 HKD +0.5 million (auction price 1.996).
Dalong Silver Cross Double Tooth Missing 5-point old ticket 1. 1 ten thousand pounds (auction price 199 1 year).
Elephant map tickets are not publicly traded.
Tickets for the main design of the pagoda are not publicly traded.
The tickets for Longtu female model have not been publicly traded.
The First Ancient Seal of China Post is HK$ 654.38 +0.45 million (auction price is 654.38+0.994).