Postal market: misplaced early stamps are sought after

Despite the gloomy domestic investment market before the Spring Festival, several large-scale auctions from Hong Kong at the end of January were like “rigged rabbits” and ran very “forcefully”. In addition to Sotheby's several cellar wines, SPINK's Hong Kong rare stamp products and paper money auctions also earned the attention of the collectors.

On January 23, a Hong Kong Queen Victoria of Hong Kong, like the 96 olive-brown stamps, sold for HK$6.4 million, becoming the highest-priced Hong Kong stamp ever sold at a Hong Kong auction. “As early as before the auction, four or five industry collectors have expressed concern about it. At the time of the auction, many important Asian stamp collectors were on the scene,” said Olivier Stocker, Spokker Group CEO and Chief Executive Officer. The lottery was valued at HK$6.4 million by a telephone bide and has not yet been informed of its specific identity.” Although the stamp was valued at HK$8 million to HK$12 million during the preview, Olivier expressed his satisfaction with this desolate situation.

From February 26th to 28th, another stamp auction will also be held in Hong Kong. Interasia Auctions, which has already held several stamp auctions in Hong Kong, will shoot multiple early tickets, small sheets and wrong tickets this time. “The valuation of these philatelic products is often in the millions. In the past 10 years, the Chinese fine stamps have experienced a 'legend' that has doubled in value in the market. Those stamps that had won hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1990s and were desolate. Now the valuation is often in the millions. It can be said that now is the era of 'mail million'.” Taiwanese collector Chen Yu (Homophonic name) set foot in the auction from 1988, began his own collection around 2000, still adhere to "only Do small categories." But at the same time, he also pointed out: "As mainland collectors stir up the momentum of the art market more and more, we also have to stand by and watch carefully and carefully select categories and collections to prevent the market from recurring in 1991 when the situation suddenly turned cold."

Mistakes are sought after

"The unique feature of the Hong Kong Queen Victoria of Hong Kong like the 96-episode Olive Brown Quartet is its misprinted olive brown and its watermark of the wrong body," said Olivier Stocker. In 1862, Hong Kong issued the first batch of stamps since the opening ceremony. It counted from 2 to 96 pre-emptive votes of 7 denominations, all of which were brown-gray. “De la Rue, a printing company, printed another 96 pre-printed stamps in May 1864, a total of 52 full-length sheets, but it turned out to be olive-brown because of the misunderstanding. The watermark was also wrong. The original version of 'CC' placed under the crown was wrongly placed on the crown.After misprinting, due to the rush of time, it was not possible to change the printing in a timely manner. The Hongkong Post Bureau was introduced from January to February 1865, but it was short-lived. Oliver said that the correct shades of brown-gray stamps have been printed and introduced to the market between July and August of the same year. According to records, there are only about 40 new tickets for this color-stamped stamp in the world, and this time the four-party joint ticket has been treasured by many prominent international collectors, including New York collector George Burghard. Japanese collector Ishikawa Ryohei and Hong Kong collector Chen Zhuojian.

Since there are few new permanent votes, Hong Kong's Queen Victoria like the 96 early olive brown quadrilateral stamps can be compared with the Chinese mainland's “small-valued” stamps in terms of value and market. Both are rare collections. The wrong stamp or misprinted stamp has been mistakenly referred to as a wrong ticket because it was mistaken in the printing or design process and was not discovered in time before the release. "The wrong ticket is always highly sought after, which is related to its 'scarcity' traits." Chen Yu said.

At the exclusive stamp auction at the end of February at Interasia Auctions, a red New China period stamp is particularly noteworthy. Workers, peasants and soldiers in the paintings smiled, and they sang “Mao Yue Quotations” in their hands. The map behind them had a yellow font: “The mountains and rivers in the country were red”. This was a “red” known to the stamp collection community. It is currently the hottest New China Top Ten Jane Mail series Wen Wenzhen stamps on the market. “There are also many examples of miscalculations in the history of the New China Stamps. The representative philatelic product is the wrong ticket that was immediately recalled when it was issued. It was a red one. In the autumn of 2009, a huge national river with a face value of only 8 points. "Red" was sold at a shocking price of 3.68 million Hong Kong dollars," said Jeffrey Schneider, a stamp collection expert.

“But not all wrong tickets have a huge appreciation space. There are also many wrong votes on the stamp market that cannot be “rising”. The key is to see where its “wrong” points are, and whether these “wrong” can become topics, or these Whether the number of wrong ticket issuance is under control or not," said Chen Yu. "Only those who have been explicitly recalled by the state post or have a very small number of outflows at the same time; ”

Early and late votes played by the people

The stamps of the Qing Dynasty and the Qiang Period were also the highlights of the upcoming Hong Kong stamp auctions at the end of February. The "Red Print Stamped Stamped Short Print" stamp (commonly known as "Xiaofen"), which was released at the end of the 19th century, will be the most pre-exposure exhibit to attract professional collectors.

"Early ticket" usually refers to stamps issued in the past, such as the philatelic products issued during the Qing Dynasty and the period of the communists. As one of the most sought after categories in the early stamps, the "red stamped temporary stamp" is actually a kind of provisional stamp stamped with the denomination of the postage on the stamps used by the customs. Prior to 1896, China's postal service was provided by Customs Post. When the national postal service of the Qing Dynasty began in 1897, because special stamps were too late to print, they had no choice but to adopt this expedient measure. Its worth has skyrocketed after 100 years.

“Whether it is Western collectors or Chinese collectors, their interest in the collection of early-term tickets was the earliest, making it a relatively stable category in the stamp collection.” According to Oliver, “With the performance of mainland collectors The more enthusiastic, the early ticket prices have risen steadily. At present, many internationally renowned collectors are from China. Last year, the 'red ink stamp' stamped with the 'red stamp' for temporary printing of small characters was printed in Hong Kong with over 5 million Hong Kong dollars. Desolation deal."

Chen Yu believes that he is more optimistic about the long-term market for early tickets than the current ten most popular New China Top Ten Mail series on the market, such as the “Wen Wuzhen” stamp. “Early votes have been successfully sold for more than a million yuan, and historical values ​​have been gradually recognized. Among them, early Qing and early people’s votes were relatively more international. The Yaxing collection of Chinese stamps dates back to 1878. The first official stamp was issued by the Chinese government, and Westerners who created the modern postal system were the first collectors of Chinese stamps. Afterwards, overseas Chinese gradually became prosperous. Chinese collectors began to pay attention to early Chinese stamps. Early tickets had already circulated in the collection market. For many years, they have a broader collection of people, and there is less possibility of 'sting' or 'sag'."