Postal history and stamps of the treaty ports
The postal history of the treaty ports covers the period from 1865 to 1897, during which, before the existence of the Chinese state post, private postal services organized by the European-dominated city administrations of the treaty ports handled part of the mail traffic in China. This phase of Chinese postal history ended with the establishment of the Chinese State Post in 1896 and the enforcement of its postal monopoly .
Collectors count among these postal services also the private mail of the leased area Wei Hai Wei 1898/99.
history
As a result of the so-called Unequal Treaties , the Chinese Empire had to grant European powers extensive sovereign rights in a number of port cities from 1842 onwards. Power in these cities was in the hands of a local administration that was dependent on European consuls and traders. The Board of Directors ( Municipality Council ) of Shanghai in 1865 set up a postal service. In contrast to the already existing postal services of various European powers, which ensured postal traffic between China and the respective mother country or the rest of the world, the postal service of the contractual ports was geared towards internal Chinese traffic. There was a postal service ( Min Chu ) organized by Chinese merchants, but it was considered expensive and unreliable. The postal service established in Shanghai was open to the general public. Letters could be franked individually with postage stamps, or people and companies could participate in a subscription system and send postage free for an annual contribution. These programs were then to be marked with a chop by the subscriber. The Shanghai Post had branch post offices in Amoy , Foochow , Hankow , Nanking , Ningpo and Swatow . In addition, postal agencies existed in many major Chinese cities, so that this postal service eventually operated almost nationwide.
In 1893 the postal system was reformed and the subscription system abolished. Some of the branch post offices outside Shanghai were converted into their own postal services by the respective city administrations, but they continued to cooperate with the Shanghai Post Office. A Chinese state post was not established until the end of 1896. In order to eliminate private competition in the treaty ports, an imperial decree from February 2, 1897 forbade all private mail transport by land and water across Chinese territory. The enforcement of the postal monopoly meant the end of the postal services of the treaty ports within a few months, although some tried to survive as pure city mail.
Postage stamps from postal services in contracted ports
The spelling of the place names as on the postage stamps is used for better identification.
Shanghai
The Shanghai Post Office is the oldest of the contractual ports' postal services. It was founded in 1863 by the city administration. A special feature was the subscription system, in which companies could have their entire mail volume transported after paying an annual amount. Other customers had to frank individual mail items, for which the first postage stamps were issued at the end of 1865, which were approved for franking mail items from January 1866. The stamps were sold in Chinese currency and have values in candarin , later in cash, with 10 cash equating to one candarin. The first stamps in Shanghai show the motif of a dragon, this motif was copied 10 years later by the post office of the Chinese customs. It is no longer known where these letterpress stamps were printed. From 1866 to 1889, a modified dragon motif remained in use for postage stamps; these stamps were printed using the gravure printing process at Nissen & Parker in London . In 1889 a coat of arms followed, which was the last edition with the value in cash. From January 1, 1890, the 1889 coat of arms was posted to the post office counter, stating the new currency in cents of the Chinese silver dollar. It was followed in May 1893 by an edition on which all the coats of arms of the European powers represented in the city administration were combined. In November 1893, a special edition commemorated the 50th anniversary of the European branch. The last issue of a stamp in the design of the stamps from May 1893 took place in October 1896, in the following year the independence ended: the Shanghai Local Post, at that time the most modern and best equipped postal system in Asia, was in the state post with all employees and complete inventory integrated. Even the typical postage stamps with corresponding inscriptions were retained for inner-city traffic until the 1920s.
Amoy
On February 5, 1890, the Shanghai Post Office opened a branch post office in the port city of Amoy ( Xiamen ) in Fukien ( Fujian ) province . On April 1, 1895, this branch post office was converted into the independent Amoy City Post Office. From June 8, 1895, the city post office used its own postage stamps depicting herons in a marsh landscape. Six values from ½ to 5 cents were issued with this motif, which had been produced in Düren by Schleicher & Schüll using the lithographic process. In the period that followed, postage stamps and other values such as 3 cents and 10 cents were produced by locally produced imprints on these six original stamps. The last stamps appeared at the post office counter in October 1896, and Post Amoys was closed in early 1897.
Chefoo
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Chefoo Post Office ( Zhifu ) opened on July 11, 1893. As in Amoy, lithographic stamps from Schleicher & Schüll were used. The first series from 1893 showed five values in different colors with the so-called smoke tower from Yantai, this series was reprinted from retouched stones in 1894. In 1896 three higher values of 15, 20 and 25 cents were added, showing a city view in landscape format. Chefoo's post office closed at the beginning of 1897.
Chinkiang
Chinkiang ( Zhenjiang ) Post Office opened in 1894. The stamps show two different versions of a cityscape with the pagoda of the Jinshan Temple on the Yangtze River in a circular medallion. Both versions differ only in the presence of clouds in the sky over the city. Of these stamps made by stereotyping at Tsukiji Type Foundry Co. in Tokyo , postage stamps were made by locally imprinting POSTAGE DUE . A series of postage stamps with a POSTAGE DUE label in place of the cityscape appeared in 1895. Curiously, the Chinkiang Post Office has issued 33 different postage stamps but only 15 postage stamps in the three years of its existence. In September 1895 eight values from ½ to 15 cents appeared, which had been converted into official stamps of the city administration by the imprint Service .
Chungking
Chungking ( Chongqing ), an inland port on the Upper Yangtze, was the second port city to organize a postal service after Shanghai abandoned the subscription system. The Chungking Post Office has branch post offices in Shanghai and Ichang. The first stamps appeared in December 1893. In Chungking, the old currency system of 1 tael to 100 candarins was still in effect. The first two postage stamps for two Candarins were produced by Kelley & Walsh in Shanghai using lithography and show a view from the river to the city towered over by a pagoda . In December 1894, a series of five stamps with an only slightly changed design appeared, which had been produced in the stone printing process at the Tsukiji Type Foundry Co. in Tokyo.
Foochow
Foochow ( Fuzhou ) was opened to European traders as early as 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking , and around 1882 it received two branch offices of the Shanghai Post, one in the city, the other at the Pagoda jetty, about 16 km downstream. The city administration set up its own postal service on January 1, 1895. The stamps used for this show a dragon boat regatta and were made using the stone printing process at Waterlow & Sons in London .
Hankow
Hankow (Hankou, now part of Wuhan ) is an inland port on the Yangtze River, around 1000 km upstream from Shanghai. A Shanghai postal agency already existed there by 1878. In early 1893, the city council established the first postal service in a contract port after Shanghai abandoned the subscription system. The first stamps from May 1893 show as a motif a typical pen with two Teelasten. These simple stamps were made locally using letterpress printing . This was followed a month later by a series of five values, in which the motif for the lower value levels of 2, 5 and 10 cents remained unchanged, but the higher values of 20 cents and 30 cents showed new motifs with the crane pagoda and the building of the city administration . In 1894 and 1896 new series appeared with slightly modified motifs that were created using the stone printing process.
Ichang
Ichang ( Yichang ) is an inland port on the Yangtze River, almost 2,300 km from Shanghai, about halfway between Chungking and Hankow. Until 1893 there was only one trading agency in the area, which was connected to the Shanghai postal network. A branch post office in Chungking opened probably in December 1893 and was converted into a local city post office in November 1894. As of December 1, 1894, a series of eight postage stamps produced by the Tsukiji Type Foundry Co. in Tokyo was available for franking mail . All eight stamps show different motifs with contemporary coins, the city name in Chinese letters on an ornamental background, animals and, on the highest value, a city map of the European branch. In Ichang, the old Chinese currency was 1 tael , which was divided into 10 mace and 100 candarins.
Kewkiang
From June 1, 1894, the inland port of Kewkiang ( Jiujiang ) on the Yangtze River had its own postal service. The stamps were printed on site by Central China Press using letterpress printing. They show six different motifs, three different ways of writing the place name in Chinese characters and three motifs with views of buildings and sights. On three of these original stamps, temporary items of ½ cents and 2 cents were made in August 1896 by means of black overprints; in addition, a total of 26 postage stamps of various value levels were also created from September 1895 onwards.
Nanking
The shortest-lived postal service of a contractual port was established in Nanking ( Nanjing ) in mid-1896, but the Shanghai Post had a branch post office since 1885. The large-format stamps from Nanking-Post show important buildings and sights in the city. Even after the establishment of the postal monopoly of the Chinese State Post, there was a purely city post office in Nanking for a few months; the last 1 cent stamp from 1897 was also the last stamp issued by a post office of the treaty ports.
Wuhu
Wuhu , another inland port on the Yangtze, opened its own postal service in the course of 1894. The first postage stamps came to the post office in November 1894 and show landscape scenes, a pagoda and Chinese characters. The Shanghai Lithographic Society was responsible for the lithographic printing process for these and all other editions. By January 1897, the Post had an additional 75 stamps produced by additional overprints on 30 different original stamps, including 31 postage stamps and other temporary arrangements, which resulted in Wuhu's total production of 105 different stamps in two years and two months.
Wei Hai Wei
The post office of Wei Hai Wei ( Weihai ) is a special case within the contractual ports . In July 1898 the port city and the offshore island Liu Kung Tau (Liugong Dao) were leased to Great Britain. There was no Chinese State Post post office in the leased area, and initially no British post office either. On December 8, 1898, the Cornabé & Co. company organized a postal service to Chefoo, the nearest town with a Chinese and several European post offices. For this purpose, two primitive postage stamps were produced, which consist of an imprint of the company chop and the handwritten information 2c or 5c in the upper corners and C (ourier) P (east) at the bottom. These stamps were only in use for a month. On January 9, 1899, simply designed postage stamps made by lithographic printing at Kelley & Walsh in Shanghai were used, which show a vertical rectangle with a colored diamond, in the middle of which the digits 2 or 5 are omitted to indicate the value. In the corners outside the diamond are the letters LKT CCP for Liu Kung Tau - Chefoo Courier Post . This courier mail was discontinued in March 1899 when an Imperial Chinese Post Office was opened.
literature
- Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalog, Part 17: China. 10th ed., Stanley Gibbons, Ringwood, 2014, pp. 1-12. ISBN 978-0-85259-911-2
Web links
- Online stamp catalog , accessed February 25, 2017