High-priced Stamp Appears at China Rare Stamps Show

The opening ceremony of the first China Rare Stamps Show in Qingdao was held at Qingdao's municipal museum on Oct 16, attracting more than 5,000 people eager to see a rare stamp called the China Red.

During the event, Qingdao will also offer stamp collection lectures, stamp exhibits and activities inviting government organizations, enterprises, communities, military camps and schools to promote China's stamp collecting culture.

When a reporter arrived at 9 am on Oct 16 for the opening ceremony, museum staff members had put a collection of rare stamps inside exhibit frames and then sealed them. "We have been preparing for the show since 5 o'clock in the morning," one staff members told the reporter.

The stamps, including several rarely seen in the world, were worth more than 100 million RMB ($15 million) and were only on exhibit for one day because of security concerns.

The exhibit opened at 10 am, and long lines of visitors swarmed into the museum to see the rare stamps, including the "China Red", dubbed the rarest stamp in China. Visitors were also able to see the "Big Dragon", the first stamp introduced in the country, and many varieties of stamps and postcards representing different historical stages from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

"Many of those stamps are rarely seen in the world, and this is really a special opportunity," one staff member said. A collector named Guo Yong brought his 8-year-old son to the exhibit in the hope that someday his son would also become a stamp lover, he said.

"I'd like to spend a whole month appreciating these stamps, since almost every set represents the highest level of Chinese stamp collections," Zhang Jianyou, a 70-year old stamp lover, said. Zhang first fell in love with stamp collecting when he was in primary school, when a friend of his father sent him several stamps. He also said that the best part of collecting stamps was learning about history that otherwise would not interest him.

Many famous domestic collectors were invited to the exhibit to sign autographs and answer questions from visitors. The municipal post office also set up a temporary office at the museum to sell the philatelic exhibition’s commemorative envelopes, stamp folders and stamp albums, and to provide stamp sealing services for visitors.

A staff member at the temporary postal office said he sealed an estimated 30,000 stamps for visitors for six hours on the first day of the exhibit.

Stamp-related activities in Qingdao will continue to the end of the year.

(Source: chinadaily / Oct. 18, 2010) http://www.womenofchina.cn/news/Spotlight/226608.jsp