China Overprints - Done!

I thought I was done with the Chinese overprints until I turned the page. Guess not. Take me out back and shoot me. Just posted them, thought people would like to see! - Jeff

Those are some lovely pages :) ...wish I could translate though :P

Oh Ash, they are so intriguing to figure out, but they can also be the biggest pain in the tush to spend time with. I call it frustrating fun. {:-}

Do you have the catalog to help with tranlastion or are you using a web link? I have a few China stamps I'd be interested in identifying, I believe one is from you ;) Have never really looked into them, but "frustrating fun" is something I may be up for today. been a lazy day and I haven't yet figured out what my daily stamp project will be...

Good news and bad news.

The good news is that all but one stamp will be listed in Scott. The one not listed is the Kiangsi (Jiangxi) postal savings overprint (2nd page, 2nd line, 6th stamp).

The bad news is that the stamps don't appear to be in any specific ordering. Some of the stamps will be found in the regular Scott listings for China; other stamps will be in the back of the ROC listings under areas such as North China, Mongolia...

....but just because I haven't looked into it doesn't mean I dont have it nicely mounted on my China page!! ;)

I think it's good news theyre organized by color (for the most part)! hahaha! I have arranged several pages like this just for fun...perhaps this was not intended, but appealing none the less :)

khj thanks, just knowing they are in the book is a big help and I won't feel like giving up til I find them. Marked the one that you cited and off to the races with the rest. You have been and always are a great help.

Ash: the one I gave you should be in a catalog, because I took all of the ones I gave you out of marked glassines.

Off to China all - Jeff

It looks like the collector who originally mounted those overprinted stamps did have a method... the stamps are organized according to design type (although 1 stamp is out of place) and then in order of increasing original face value within that design/set. Surcharged values apparently were ignored in favor of sorting by the original stamp face value.

maybe an older catalog set them up that way? - thanks - Jeff

Since you insist on torturing yourself, Jeff, here is a cheat sheet for the first page (don't read if you want to keep torturing yourself)...

page 1
r1 s2 -- North China
r2 s1 -- Sinkiang
r2 s6 -- Taiwan
r3 s1 -- Northeast Provinces
r3 s2 -- Taiwan
r3 s4 -- Northeast Provinces
r3 s5 -- Taiwan
r3 s7 -- Meng Chiang (Inner Mongolia)
r4 s1 -- Meng Chiang
r4 s3 -- Shanghai and Nanking (S&N)
r4 s6 -- Taiwan
r5 s1 -- Northeast Provinces
r5 s2 -- Taiwan
r5 s4 -- North China
r6 s1 -- North China
r6 s4 -- S&N
r6 s6 -- S&N
r6 s7 -- S&N
r7 s3 -- S&N
r7 s4 -- S&N
r7 s7 -- North China

Hopefully, I didn't make any mistakes on grid IDs. If so, well, just additional torture for you! Most (if not all) of the rest of the stamps on that page should be in the front section, although I really didn't check the surcharges that carefully as the crowded overprints are rather hard to read in pics.

By the time you finish the first page, I figure the 2nd page should be snap for you!

I don't think so, because there is one stamp that is noticeably out of place.

I think that was simply the sorting method used by that collector. Some collectors like to sort unreadable overprints by the original design, and then follow the footnote trail in Scott. That's what I do for the Turkish overprints. The collector can then simply write the ID underneath the stamp, or pull the stamp out as they come across the correct overprint and ID.

KHJ row 3 number 7 2N47a??? Overprints measure just about 4 mm.

I hate being the one to give bad news. Sorry, but it looks to me like 2N108? The pic is too small for me to tell for certain. Can you supply a bigger pic focusing on the overprint for that stamp? Then I can let you know for sure. Thank you.

khj don't worry about bursting my bubble, I am just trying to get the ID correct. Here is a better picture. Thanks as always. - Jeff

Thanks for the bigger pic!

Definitely #2N108. It may not be obvious at first, but the overprint font style between #2N47/2N47a and #2N108 are distinctly different, even though the characters are the same.