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Auction: 19009 - The Treaty Ports of the Shanghai Postal System - Part 1
Lot: 1238

Kewkiang
1894 First Issue
Issued Stamps
The Demise of Collecting Local Post Stamps
1894 (7 May) a long and detailed letter from Ralph Irish to his parents; there are four pages with a further two pages postscript. The letter states his intension to buy almost the entire stock of ½c. stamps, hoping to make a good profit from stamp collectors.


In it he writes, "... Our local post office opens on first June. The issue of stamps is limited to 100,000 of each value; then the dies will be melted down and when necessary a new set will be printed. Our "Press" is doing the job and will make a nice sum therefore Mr Banbury and I have decided to buy up the entire issue of Kewkiang ½c. stamps after a few thousand have gone out, enough to advertise them. Our plan is to send them to someone in U.S. to sell for us to stamp dealers. The stamp will always bring face value, so there is little risk, and a big chance to make a nice sum as we will have the whole issue and readily get a premium. At 1c. Mex apiece we double our money. At 1c. U.S. we nearly quadruple it. ... On some deal of this kind at Shanghai a man made $49,000. We shan't go so heavy. It will take between 200 - 250 Mex apiece for ½c. We may take some of the other values later. As Banbury prints the stamps we have everything in our hands. Dealers will be wild to get the stamps and can only obtain them through our man.


A rare letter which explains the speculation which nearly ended the collecting of the Treaty Port stamps. A fascinating item of museum quality. Photo.

They did try to sell 95,000 to a third party. This was picked up in the philatelic press causing outrage among collectors and dealers. This act provided the newly-formed Society for the Suppression of Speculative Stamps with an exccellent opportunity to black-list the stamps of Kewkiang as purely speculative. This ban immediately spread to all of the Chinese Treaty Port issues, except Shanghai. This resulted in the exclusion of all of these issues for all standard catalogues. It is only recently that they have made their way back into catalogues and mainstream collecting


1897年5月7日一封詳盡的信, 寄自九江的Ralph Irish給他在美國的雙親; 共有四頁及帶兩頁附註; 內容提及他與Banbury決定購買九江工部書信館於6月1日發行首套郵票中的半分票十萬枚, 郵局賣掉數千張作廣告後全數買下, 然後熔解全部印刷模版, 因此新版次的郵票必將被印刷, 於是便可促進印刷業務的總額…, Banbury與他作成決定整批賣給美國郵商再分銷出去, 郵票售出價以墨西哥鷹元1分則有加倍之利益, 而如售出價以美金計算, 美金1分則有四倍利益, 且他與Banbury能掌控全域而能夠從其手中購得郵票...; 這是一通十分重要及罕見信函, 它說明瞭九江商埠郵票的如何壟斷及販賣._x000D_ _x000D_ 他們曾嘗試將95,000枚郵票出售給某人, 並在郵票印刷公司內交收, 此舉引起收藏家及郵商的憤怒, 但卻引致對九江郵票的投機及壟斷, 很快地除上海外, 其餘各地的商埠票都禁止以此手段壟斷郵票. 因這可導致所有這些郵票都被排除於標準目錄之外, 直到最近它們才回到標準目錄及集郵主流收藏之中.

Sold for
HK$5,500