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Auction: 16012 - Meiso Mizuhara, The Exhibition Collections, The Chinese Customs Post
Lot: 1719

China
1897 Revenue Surcharges
The Small One Dollar
$1 on 3c. red [1] large part original gum, bright colour on white paper; there are a few light perf. tones which are of little consequence and an old hinge mark is apparent on the reverse. There is a thin spot under yu. A good example of this legendary rarity.


The basic stamps shows the characteristic weakness near the foot of the left outer frame line, which confirms this as position [6] on the original sheet, or the first stamp of the pane of twenty five. On this example the letter "a" of "dollar" is broken, though it is difficult to be sure if this is a constant positional variety or a local failure of the printing. The break in the character cheng is fairly normal though more pronounced by the white part of the design underneath; there is also a spur or dot towards the foot of the character ta.

provenance: Adolphus Diercking, November 1956

Warren G. Kauder, November 1971



references: Number A-12 in Huang Kuang Sheng, A Treatise on the extant copies of the Small One Dollar, 1975

Type I 8 in The Revenue Surcharges China 1897, 1987


Two panes, or fifty stamps, were produced. One pane was acquired by a collector (de Villard?) and all twenty five have been recorded. The second pane was sold at a post office and several of these have been lost. This second pane is easily identifiable as the surcharge is much higher. Both of these panes come from the top right quarter of the original unsurcharged sheet of one hundred.

A total of thirty four stamps have been recorded

Sold for
HK$3,600,000