Revival of Stamp Collecting in China

Once banned by Mao Zedong as a bourgeois activity, stamp collecting has become increasingly popular in China in recent years.

 While early collectors were from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the international Chinese diaspora, some important Mainland Chinese collectors are today “repatriating” stamps, in the same way that others are bringing back Chinese artworks.

“I would say presently that half of my buyers are from Mainland China and half are from outside China,” said Louis Mangin, owner of the auction house Zurich Asia. “Many Westerners also buy Chinese stamps. It is seen as a diversification and investment into China.”

Mr. Mangin, who has been collecting Chinese stamps for 10 years, said prices had risen strongly in the last two years, though not uniformly.

“The 1960s and 1970s issues have risen on average between 150 percent and 200 percent over the last two years,” he said. “On the other hand, 1930s and 1940s issues have probably risen 50 percent on average over the same period.”

He added that stamps dating from the Qing Dynasty had also risen, on average about 50 percent over the last two years.

A franked version of a 1968 stamp that Robert Schneider, a principal with the auctioneer InterAsia Auctions in Hong Kong, called “the most iconic stamp of the People’s Republic of China,” sold at auction in August for 345,000 Hong Kong dollars, or about $44,500.

The stamp, titled “The Whole Country is Red,” depicts a group of workers holding Mao’s “Little Red Book,’ with a red map of China in the background. It was pulled from circulation on the day it was issued, however, officially because the map omitted the Xisha and Nansha Islands, although probably a more important omission was Taiwan.

Some of the stamps had been sold before the order to pull them came.

Mr. Schneider says that in recent years, rare examples printed during the decade of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, have become the most popular stamps from modern China.

Nick Salter, who runs Philatelic Investor, a British Web site that provides financial advice to stamp collectors, confirmed that the Cultural Revolution era was in particular demand. “Very broadly,” Mr. Salter said, “the Chinese appear to be buying as collectors, whereas Westerners are more likely to be buying for investment, in the anticipation that they can sell on into the Chinese market at a later date.”

China’s first stamps, the “Large Dragons,” were printed in Shanghai in 1878 when the city was controlled by foreigners. The stamps were inscribed “China” in Latin letters and Chinese characters, and denominated in candareens, a unit of weight then used to describe a unit of imperial currency.

A set of the three basic stamps from this first issue would sell at auction now for less than $1,000, Mr. Schneider said. In contrast, the most sought-after stamps from the Qing Dynasty era, which lasted until 1911 — the 1897 “Red Revenues” — can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 1897, China changed its currency: but new stamps ordered from Japan failed to arrive on time, Mr. Schneider said, so the government overprinted some unissued “3 cent” Red Revenue stamps with the new currency.

One of this series, called the “Small One Dollar” because a “1 dollar” value is also marked in smaller type, is today acknowledged as the rarest of all regular-issued Chinese stamps. Only 32 recorded copies are in existence, one of which sold in January at Interasia for 5.52 million Hong Kong dollars, a world record for a Chinese stamp.

Collecting stamps dating from the Qing Dynasty tends to appeal to more traditional, “classic stamp” collectors, Mr. Schneider said, and “many often require a little bit more expertise and knowledge.”
Mr. Mangin recommends that new collectors buy the older imperial issues from the Qing period, which he says are underpriced compared with modern stamps, issued from 1949 onward.

“I estimate that the market capitalization of the older issues is 1 percent of the modern issues,” he said, “and they therefore have the potential to rise tenfold very easily.”

But Mr. Schneider notes that the modern Chinese stamps have bolder colors and designs that are more interesting, often depicting historic events or popular themes like animals and landscapes “and thus have strong appeal to new collectors.”

Stamps printed by the People’s Republic of China started with a four-stamp set in October 1949, depicting a lantern and the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

Today, the most coveted Chinese stamps of the period are those dating from the early years of the Cultural Revolution, which are somewhat pricier than the later Cultural Revolution issues.

The colorful stamps from that period, often depicting patriotic scenes, were printed in great numbers and most remain relatively inexpensive. But four unissued stamps, now known as the Four Treasures, can fetch six-figure dollar prices at auction. One of them, the 1968 “Great Victory of Cultural Revolution” stamp, shows Mao with his then-ally, and later enemy, the Communist military leader Lin Biao. It sold for 900,000 Hong Kong dollars at Interasia’s summer auction on July 31 and Aug.1.

Some more recent issues are also highly sought, including those related to the animals of the Chinese zodiac. A complete sheet of 80 “Year of the Monkey” stamps from 1980 went for a record 1.265 million Hong Kong dollars at the same sale, “a remarkable price for a regularly issued stamp only from the last 30 years,” Mr. Schneider said.

The black monkey on a red background, a color seen as auspicious in Chinese culture, was issued in the year of the Golden Monkey, a particularly lucky year in the Chinese zodiac that comes around only once every 60 years.

“It’s hard to say what will increase in value over time,” Mr. Schneider said, “but one rule of thumb is that common stamps will always remain common.” He added, “The condition of the stamps is also an important factor.”

Asian stamp collectors face two main problems: humidity and forgery. If exposed to humidity, stamps may rust or oxidize, “what we call ‘toning’ in philately,” Mr. Mangin said.

Keeping them dry, he said, “can be achieved with a dehumidifier or placing salt bags in the safe or cupboard where the stamps are stored.”

Forgery is a big problem for investment-grade stamps, especially when traded on the Internet.
“A lot of forgeries are made in China,” Mr. Mangin said, “but the experts can generally spot them easily. It is very difficult to replicate stamps that are 100 years old because the type of paper, inking and printers no longer exist.”

“However, there are forgeries of the 1980 Red Monkey that I can barely distinguish,” he said. “These fakes are printed with paper and ink which are still available today! However, the fakes have not dented the rise in price of the genuine.”

Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/fashion/19iht-acagstamp.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1