Philatelic Society NEWSLETTER

Transcription

1 January 2019 Member of FIP & FIAP HKPS Monthly Newsletter The Hong Kong Honorary Editor: P. C. Shaw Founded 1921 Philatelic Society NEWSLETTER Chairman: Malcolm Hammersley Vice-Chairman: Andrew Cheung Daniel Szeto Honorary Secretary: Stephen Chan Honorary Treasurer: John Tang Honorary Editor: P.C. Shaw Editor s Note HKPS Meeting 20 December 2018 Happy New Year! Hope you have enjoyed the holiday and are refreshed for the new endeavours in In the first half of the year, there will be two major local activities. The Hong Kong Stampex 2019 will be held on 1-3 March, followed by the Inter-School Stamp Exhibits Competition on 30 April. We hope these activities will bring more interest and new bloods in philately. This issue reports committee members recent activities in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, showing our efforts in promoting youth philately and in interacting with philatelic clubs in mainland China. This issue also publishes another interesting article from Mr. Simon Choi, on his Sai Kung mail findings. Chinese New Year is round the corner and it will be Year of the Pig. Lunar New Year stamps are always popular and Hongkong Post will issue special stamps and related products on 12 January Do not miss the occasion. Auction Secretary: Tony Cheung Youth Officer: Albert Lai Librarian: Robert Schneider Committee Member: William Kwan K.L. Poon Committee membership...p. 1 Editor s note...p. 1 December meeting note...p. 1 Monthly members meeting...p. 1 and website information...p. 1 Exhibition calendar P. 2 Recent philatelic activities...p. 2-3 Bangkok FIP.....P. 3-4 Chefoo single ring cds...p. 5 Fresh stamp and label on old newspaper...p. 5-6 An unissued Cultural Revolution stamp...p. 7 Chongqing returned registered airmail cover....p.7 Collect Hong Kong stamps P. 8 The scheduled talk of Mr. Rob Schneider was postponed to 17 January Nevertheless, the meeting was still full of substance. Three members were invited to give an account on their collected material. First, Mr. Huang Yumin introduced his one frame collection: Fly Via the Red Sky Early China International Airmail Via USSR Airlines ( ). He said, on 1 May 1922, a joint Soviet-German airline Deruluft opened its first air link between Königsberg and Moscow. This was also the first air route connecting China and Europe and three days faster by land mail. Mr. Huang has got the earliest known cover sent via Moscow-Königsberg air route from China. His collection also has a cover sent from Germany with Manchukuo postmark to Peiping in 1935 and a cover using a short live air route via Chungking-Hami-Alma Ata to Europe after the outbreak of WWII. Second, Mr. Francis Au introduced a subset in his Shanghai S1 covers his study of eight covers from Mr. Charles Vapereau, a French language teacher, from Beijing with his parents and Ms. L. Garnier in France during late 19th century. These covers showed how the interaction between China Customs Mail and the Shanghai British and French Treaty Ports mail had evolved. Mr. Au also highlighted the scarce 1872 cover auctioned by Interasia in June It shows the first year usage of the Custom House dater. Mr. Au will publish his study in the 2019 HKPS Journal. Third, Mr. Malcolm Hammersley showed some reply cards of the late 19th to early 20th century, including a rare rejoined pair between Shanghai and Hannover, Germany written in old German language. He stated that many 1c and 3c Hong Kong reply cards were used as postcards by crossing out the word Reply and in fact there were not many used reply cards around, as senders may not intend to get the reply. Monthly Members Meeting Time and Venue: 6:30pm, Woo Kwan Lee & Lo conference room at 25/F, Jardine House, 1 Connaught Place, Hong Kong. 17th January: Mr. Rob Schneider on Malta Postal History in the Early Adhesive Period, Some QV overprints will be auctioned in the meeting. GPO Box 446, Hong Kong, HKPS hkpsociety@yahoo.com, HKPS editor hkpseditor@gmail.com

2 Exhibition Calendar Exhibition Date Place Commissioner Hong Kong Stampex Mar Sheung Wan, Hong Kong John Tang China 2019 (FIP World Stamp Exhibition) June Wuhan, China K.L. Poon Singpex 2019 (FIAP Patronage) 31 Jul 4 Aug Singapore Rob Schneider London 2020 (FIP Patronage) 2 9 May London, UK Andrew Cheung For China 2019, please communicate with Mr. K.L. Poon for application form. Address: Rm. 1003, 10/F., Welborne Commercial Centre, 8 Java Road, North Point, Hong Kong. Mobile: Deadline of application: 31 January, For London 2020, the entry fee for five and eight-frame competitive classes is GBP70 per frame. The entry fee for the one-frame competitive class is GBP90 per frame. The entry fee in the Literature Class is GBP25 per entry. The entry fee for Youth Exhibits will be GBP25 per entry. Application form, IREX and other information can be found in: All entry forms should reach Dr. Andrew Cheung 15 June Recent Philatelic Activities Workshop for preparing Inter-school stamp exhibits Competition To prepare secondary school students for the 2019 Inter-School Stamp Exhibits Competition, committee members Mr. Stephen Chan, Albert Lai and P.C. Shaw were invited by Hongkong Post to conduct a workshop on 15 December 2018 in the Staff Training Centre at Cheung Sha Wan. After giving a talk on Youth Philately by P.C. Shaw, members provided students with stamps and tools, and they were guided to generate a 1-page exhibit. The exhibit was then commented and prices were given. Hopefully, through this and related activities, more students will be interested in philately and exhibition. Prize awarding ceremony 2 HKPS Monthly Newsletter January 2019 Mr. Albert Lai (Second from left) advises students on preparing the exhibits

3 Recent Philatelic Activities China Philatelic Culture Exhibition Tour to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of China s reform and opening up Invited by Mr. Kou Lei ( ), Vice-Chairman of Shenzhen Philatelic Association, Committee members Mr. Stephen Chan, Daniel Szeto and P.C. Shaw attended the China Philatelic Culture Exhibition Tour to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of China s reform and opening-up in Shenzhen on 18 December Activities included the release ceremony of commemorative stamps and souvenir sheet to mark the 40th anniversary of China s reform and opening up and the holding of non-competitive and competitive philatelic exhibition. We congratulate Mr. Huang Yumin ( ), member of HKPS, for winning a gold medal for his postal history exhibit China Early International Airmail He also showed his two award winning exhibits, one thematic on horses and another on the use of 43 Fen postage stamp in international airmail. After the ceremony, delegates were invited to have a sumptuous meal at Shajing ( ), which is famous in oyster production, and enjoyed eight oyster dishes cooked in different ways before returning to Hong Kong. HKPS members with mainland China philatelists in the venue Commemorative stamps to celebrate the event Commissioner s Report on THAILAND 2018 FIP General World Stamp Exhibition Daniel Szeto THAILAND 2018 was held from 28 November to 3 December 2018 at Royal Paragon Hall of Siam Paragon Shopping Centre in Bangkok. The main objective of the exhibition was to celebrate the new king and 135th anniversary of Thailand Post. This exhibition was the 5th FIP World Stamp Exhibition held in Thailand since 1983, with the last one being held just five years ago in The standard of the exhibits was very high. With a total of 603 exhibits in around 2,647 frames being judged, 33 Large Gold medals, 110 Gold medals and other levels of medals were awarded. The Expert Group also reported that 55 dubious items were removed from the frames for closer examination, as a result five items were recommended with no action required, 33 items had to be certified and 17 items not to be exhibited again. Hong Kong representatives Mr. William Kwan receiving his Large Gold medal January

4 Commissioner s Report on THAILAND 2018 FIP General World Stamp Exhibition Daniel Szeto Hong Kong had 6 exhibits and 4 literature to take part in the competition, the results are as follows: Exhibitor Kwan William Kwan To Wah Tony Au Francis Chan Charles Mak Kwok Pui Cheung Andrew Mak Kwok Pui Kwan William Choi Cheong Too Zhu Yeping and Mak Kwok Pui Class TR TR PH PH PH Aero Lit Lit Lit Lit Title of exhibit Hong Kong: Designs, Proofs, Specimens and other Archival Materials China: Empress Dowager Jubilee and Its Surcharged Issues China: Mail from Shanghai Foreign Offices Treaty Ports Cancellations of British Post Offices in China & Japan on Hong Kong Stamps The Recovery and Development of Chinese Domestic Airmail Service (1 Aug Jun 1958) Guatemala Airmail Postal History of 1937 in China - The First Year of the Second Sino-Japanese War Stamps and Covers of East China Liberated Areas The Choi Cheong-Too Collection: The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Macao The Kings of the Monkeys Point Medal LG G V LV LV G V LV LG+SP S Special congratulation was extended to Mr. Choi for his set of books in eight volumes winning the Large Gold medal, a very rare medal being awarded for literature class exhibit which should be only with rich content and exceptional high level of originality, personal study and research. As regards the Grand Prix awards, the winners were as follows: Exhibitor GRAND PRIX D HONNEUR Peter Wittsten GRAND PRIX INTERNATIONAL Tan Eng Chuan GRAND PRIX NATIONAL Ayuth Krishnamara Country Denmark Singapore Thailand Title of exhibit Sweden The First Five Stamp Issues Straits Settlements from pre stamp era to 1900 Siam: King Rama IV and King Rama V ( ) The Palmares dinner took place on the 3/F of the official hotel, Asia Hotel on 2 December All the exhibitors could receive their awards on stage. Many of our members were present, including Mr & Mrs William Kwan, Mr. Malcom Hammersley, Mr. Nick Halewood, Mr. Charles Chan, Mr & Mrs Francis Au, Mr & Mrs Andrew Cheung, Mr & Mrs Stephen Chan and Mr. & Mrs. Daniel Szeto. The last programme of the night was of course the handing over of the FIP flag from the representative of THAILAND 2018 to CHINA 2018, which is to be held from June 2019 in Wuhan City ( ). The Hong Kong Commissioner is Mr. Poon Kam Leung and application should reach Mr. Poon on or before 31 January Further information is published in this issue of the Newsletter. Another highlight of the exhibition was the 75th FIP Congress held on December 2, 2018 to elect the new FIP President because Mr Tay Peng Hian had already served two terms of Presidency for eight years. According to Article 30.5 of the Statute, the President may only serve for two full terms in this position. After counting of votes, Mr Bernard Beston (Australia) beat the other candidate, Mr Chris King (United Kingdom) and was elected as the new FIP President. Dr Prakob Chirakiti (Thailand) was elected as new Vice-Presidents for Asia and Mr Richard Tan Eng Chuan (Singapore) as new Director for Asia. On behalf of the FIP Board, FIP Vice-President for Europe, Mr Bernard Jimenez also conferred Mr Tay Peng Hian as the Honorary President of FIP for his 16 years of service to FIP, including eight years of service as FIP President. He also presented the Medal of Service and Certificate of Appreciation to Mr Tay for his efforts and huge contribution to organized philately over the last 30 years. Well done and thank you indeed Mr Tay! THAILAND 2018 was a well organized and successful exhibition. With the help of many volunteers from a high school and Thailand Post, the mounting and dismounting of exhibits were done by the National Commissioners, this was proved to be very efficient and effective. I would like to thank the Organising Committee, the Philatelic Association of Thailand and Thailand Post for their dedicated hard work before and during the exhibition. We would expect another Thailand exhibition soon, either FIP or FIAP. The old and new FIP President FIP new President, Mr Bernard Beston with Daniel Szeto and Stephen Chan 4 HKPS Monthly Newsletter January 2019

5 Internal Hotel SaiKung-Mania Simon C.K. Choi Who? Who was John Michie? Shh. Listen first. At Room 22 upstairs of a building located 40 yards from Shing Lee Stamp Arcade in Central, two HKPS members were sitting in front of an array of local-made tube amps, loudspeakers and Hi-Fi equipment, reminiscing the scene of the famous HK film Internal Affairs, listening to the Chinese song Forgotten Time by Tsai Chin while starring at an image of another philatelic item bearing the Sai Kung cds and addressed to John Michie. Internal Affairs (screen capture) Mail to John Michie (internet image) How s that? Treble: sweet; Medium: accurate; Bass: powerful; in a single word: translucent No, I mean the Mail. Internal affairs of the Police, why bothered to send through the post? A summary of the major characteristics of this Sai Kung Mail: - A toned newspaper - Overland China Mail published August 17, 1938 Hong Kong; number of pages/weight unknown; - A single stamp of George V 2c in green cancelled by the double ring Sai Kung cds, dated NOON/AU 18/38; note the freshness (and white color) of the 2c stamp; - An address label in snow white typed John Michie Esq Sai Kung Station. SAI KUNG., but crossed out by pencil marks and re-written Room 22 in manuscript; - The familiar Water-Police Sai-Kung oval chop applied across part of the address label, apparently the sender s mark. I have been discussing in my last articles about the existence of the so-called Water-Police Sai-Kung and I am not going to reiterate here. The postage on printed papers for HK in that period was 2c for each 2oz. Postage seemed to be correct. However, why a wrapper was not used instead? Also, August 38 was already under the reign of KGVI, with the new KGVI 2c definitive in grey released on 5 Apr 38. Although the KGV 2c might still be valid for postage, it was unusual not to use the new KGVI definitive which should have been widely available. The address label looks like a modern self-adhesive type, which I doubt was not available prior to WWII. During that era, sticking a label usually required applying of some primitive glue, which together with the paper itself, would have become heavily toned with brownish yellow blots after 80 years! The whitish of the address label and the fresh 2c stamp are contrasting sharply with the toned newspaper. The address: Sai Kung Station. There was only one Station in that area, not Railway Station, but only Police Station. Let us simulate the scenario, if it has ever happened: Water-Police Sai-Kung brought a newspaper to Sai Kung Police Station (also a postal agency) and then mailed to John Michie Esq. at Room 22 of Sai Kung Police Station! The sender and addressee were Police colleagues, and the mailing event happened within the same Station - just internal affairs. The sender could just walk up to or request others to pass the newspaper to John Michie. Why bothered to type up an address label, purchase a 2c stamp, affix to the newspaper and then ask the Police Sergeant to cancel the stamp and deliver the item to Room 22 probably just upstairs or a few yards away? Ridiculous! January

6 Internal Hotel SaiKung-Mania Simon C.K. Choi Our members may recall the S.K registered and insured cover, having the addressee of John Mitchie Esq. at GPO; but this Michie at Sai Kung is without a t. What a resemblance! Specifying a Room number of Sai Kung Police Station was a weird act. A European residing at Sai Kung Police Station had to be of senior grade. Who did not know which room he was assigned? Was his room number changing from time to time? Sai Kung Police Station was completed in Were there plenty of rooms more than 22? Were the rooms labeled in numbers? It was a Police Station, not a hotel, not a prison! Back to the Hi-Fi room, the Tsai Chin LP was changed to Eagles and something reggae. A long guitar coda Intro of 8-bar chord progressions, embellished with bass and drum overdubs, Verses A and B, then the Chorus: Welcome to the Hotel Cali - fornia. Such a lovely place. Such a lovely face. Plenty of room at the Hotel Cali - fornia What do you think? (chorusing) Plenty of room at the Hotel SaiKung - Mania I mean the Mail. Stamp and label: posthumous; Sender and Address: fake; IMHO: fake! Let s have a glass of the 1938 Ponsot Clos St-Denis GC, labelled by Rudy K. Who is Rudy? Wine faker, convicted to a 10-year sentence and is still jailed at Prison Cali-fornia Cell 22. Spitting sounds and squeals like screaming Eagle. Better to watch AV the documentary Sour Grapes. The Second Known Chefoo Single Ring cds (As Transit) on ppc Tientsin to UK Charles Chan FRPSL Although the Bay is full of danger with great jaw, it cannot stop hunting by swimmers as treasures are here and there. February 2018 was cool as usual, but became a remarkable winter for an experienced local winter-swimmer who got an overwhelming item while swimming in the Bay freezing water. A 1907 PPC Tientsin to UK via Siberia with transit Chefoo single ring cds (Webb Type B). A genuine certification was granted by BPA in July 2018 for this second known example of this rarest cancellation of Treaty Ports in China & Japan of all reigns. Card reverse 1907-May-14 picture postcard Tientsin via Siberia to UK, franked with KEVII 4c purple on red paper cancelled Type B Tientsin Br.P.O. cds, obverse with transit Type B Chefoo single ring cds MY 15 / 07. London GPO Proof Book Impression, sent 1 Nov 1907 The first example is also a picture postcard franked with KEVII 4c purple on red paper from Chefoo to London, UK cancelled Type B Chefoo single ring cds dated AP 22/ 07 which is in possession of a renowned local philatelist and collector. It is illustrated in member s exhibit display in Hong Kong Study Circle (viewing restricted to HKSC members). 6 HKPS Monthly Newsletter January 2019

7 Rare Unissued Cultural Revolution Stamp Highlights Interasia s December Auction A mint example of the exceedingly rare 1968 unissued large-format Whole Country is Red 8f was sold by Interasia Auctions for HK$8,970,000 (including the 15% buyer s premium) in its December auction after heated competition between two determined room bidders. The stamp, considered one of the greatest rarities of the People s Republic, is thought to have been rejected because its format was too large. The same design was however employed for the iconic smaller, vertical-format Whole Country is Red that was itself withdrawn almost immediately after its official issuance, because of inaccuracies in the map, but which notwithstanding the stamp s name had Taiwan coloured white. A Returned Registered Airmail Cover from Chongqing to Hong Kong in K.P. Mak Figure 1 shows a registered airmail cover from Chongqing to Hong Kong and returned to Chongqing due to non-delivery. It shows the treatment of registered mail from China to Hong Kong in 1950s. The letter was sent to Hong Kong on 16 September 1957 and reached Hong Kong on 21 September. In 1957, there was no direct flight to Hong Kong (Figure 2). The letter was probably sent to Guangzhou and then to Hong Kong by Canton-Kowloon train. It was undelivered and returned to Chongqing via land route and it took 12 days for reaching Chongqing. The postage rate was 28c (ordinary mail: 8c + airmail: 8c + registered fee: 12c). The postage rate was the same for internal mail, as Hong Kong and Macau were regarded as part of China. On the other hand, registered letter to Hong Kong was treated as international mail. Therefore, the registration label was in English. Figure 1 Figure 2 January

8 Collect Hong Kong Stamps Year of the Pig Issue Date: Stamp Design: WONG Chun-hong The eighth of Hongkong Post s fourth Lunar New Year special stamp series the Year of the Pig issue celebrates the Lunar New Year with four pigs, modelled in embroidery, wood carving, porcelain and jade carving. This issue is accompanied by a paper stamp sheetlet and a silk stamp sheetlet that bring out the gaiety and festive spirit of the New Year. Gold and Silver Stamp Sheetlet on Lunar New Year Animals Dog/Pig Issue Date: Stamp Design: WONG Chun-hong Co-starring the dog and the pig, this glittering stamp sheetlet is full of festive joy. Signifying the old making way for the new, year of the dog and year of the pig stamps on the sheetlet are lavishly finished in silver hot foil and 22K gold-plate respectively. This highly collectible sheetlet comes with a gold fineness certificate. It is an ideal paper ornament for the Lunar New Year. Silver Hot Foil Lunar New Year Animals Monkey / Rooster / Dog / Pig Issue Date: Stamp Design: WONG Chun-hong The latest silver hot foil Chinese zodiac stamps feature the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the pig. They are the second set of the fourth Lunar New Year stamp series. This four-piece set is based on Chinese zodiac animal designs for 2016, 2017, 2018 and It is printed in lithography with silver hot foil stamping and an embossing effect. Information courtesy of Hong Kong Post Stamps 8 HKPS Monthly Newsletter January 2019