Express letter stamps are one of the most fascinating issues of
the imperial era. Not only being the largest stamp in the world, it is also a postal
record, postage stamp and postal receipts all in one.
The express letter service was initiated on the 4th. of NOVEMBER 1905. Trying to win over
long time user of the 'MIN CHU' postal system. It first serviced between Peking,
Tientsin and Shanghai and was expanded to 51 towns in 1909 and 72 towns by the end of the
Imperial period. Each of these towns was assigned different indexes from the '1000 words
essay' which none of the words are duplicated and thus unique to the town. The '1000 words
essay' was exhausted by the end of the Imperial period and 2 character indexes appear in
the early Republics.
Minimum records are found on which stamp is first issued and until today no persons are
sure of which of the two first issues was actually issued first.
These 'so called' express stamps are issued in strips of four (parts 'A' to 'D' from left
to right). The first part 'A' on the left is a post office record of the mail send, the
second part 'B' (DRAGON'S HEAD) is the receipt to be signed by the recipient, the third
part 'C' (DRAGON'S BODY) is the 10 cents stamp charged to the sender, and the right part
'D' (DRAGON'S TAIL) is the sender receipt issued to the sender when the mail is send. The
dragon's head and body is pasted on the letter and on arrival, the postman will peeled
both parts off the mail and after the recipient signed both parts, the dragon's head (PART
'B') is send back to the issuing office as a proof of delivery and the dragon’s
body (PART 'C') is kept by the postman where he can cash it in for an award of 1 cent.
The following page is examples of the 7 issues, with the last actually issued after the
Imperial era. |
