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Auction: 3034 - Meiso Mizuhara The Exhibition Collections - United States Post Offices in China
Lot: 114

†1919 $2 in $1 violet-brown variety surcharge double, tied on local cover by "u.s. pos. service, shanghai/china" c.d.s. of the type XIIA duplex dated 6 p.m., 31st December 1922 - the final hours that the post office was open, a couple of lightly foxed perfs. barely detract from this rare cover. Only seven covers recorded Estimate £ 7,000-8,000 Two sheets of one hundred stamps with the surcharge double were printed. The story is that this error was discovered by the head clerk during the final month that the postal agency was open. He reported this to C.S. Ford, the Postal Agent, however, the probems of returning to Washington some defective stamps were just too great with all of the other problems associated with closing the Agency. Selling them was by far the best option. However the clerk, Fok Shue How, was aware of the interest these would have for stamp collectors, so sold a few over the counter and purchased the remainder himself. To validate his investment he put some stamps on envelopes addressed to himself or members of his family, carefully postmarking them. Before he died, he divided the remaining unused examples between his son and daughter. The son was an opium addict and gradually sold the stamps to obtain the drug. The daughter went to the United States to study in New Orleans. The dealer, Raymond Weil was startled one day when the Chinese student showed him the block of twenty-five which she sold to pay her tuition. Some blocks of four still exist with a marginal block in the David collection, plate number block recently sold from the Drucker collection and another from the Livingston/Klein collections

Sold for
£13,000