US Q-1 Through Q-9 Parcel Post Eye Candy From US Postal Agency Shanghai, China And A Question

Anyone know anything about why this was created AND can anyone decipher the manuscript two words written at the top?

One guess is those were the values available at that office at that time. While I recall actual usages of all shown values in non-philatelic manners, I do not recall such with the 20 cent. The Q-8 as well as the Q10-12 (50 cent, 75 cent and $1) as all known well overpaying any proper rates as a solos on cover.



I guess I must keep an eye out for the Darrah overprint version on the same nine stamps arranged and tied in the same manner.


An Aside: One can stare at the computer screen for hours, days, weeks, months and even years to find an unusual, tough, rare, unique or unbelievable goodie you might want. Then there are days such as today when two such out of left field items close on eBay just hours apart from different sellers and locations, in today's case Florida and Indiana. For the other item see: http://goscf.com/t/82432

Note to self, just keep looking.

Edit: For spelling.

"Pacchi" is Italian for packages and parcels.

For is "per" in Italian.

So "For Packages" with all the known commonly at the USPA Shanghai seems to be an unofficial set of "SPECIMENS" prepared for the Italian Post Office in Shanghai seems a reasonable guess. Comments?

Sorry, but I disagree with the specimens hypothesis. The UPU, already established, only required members to distribute stamps to other members for identification of stamps, not cancels or usages.

The note could easily be written by a collector or dealer and done at any time period. Plus it looks like we're missing parts of a sheet of paper that might tell a fuller story. I suppose we should be happy that someone didn't cut these down into stamps on piece. This also makes me wonder if someone in Italy sent money to Shanghai expecting Darrah overprints that they may have seen or heard about.

These are all cancelled with a receiving cancel, so it's too philatelic for my taste. Your mileage may vary. It might be better to save your dough for a parcel wrapper or fragment with parcel posts tied. Parcelpostguy, have you ever seen such a thing/is there such a thing?

Yes, there are such examples of usages with parcel post mail. I have up to the 25 cent (no 20 from Shanghai). The 25 cent was a wrapper with other PP values mailed in March or April 1913. On other classes of mail, non-philatelic 1-15 cents and 25 cents. I only know of the 20, 50, 75 cent and dollar on clearly philatelic solo mailings.

I would say the two most unusual parcel post stamp items are two items you would never expect to find let alone ask for. A letter mailed at sea with a parcel post tied by Japanese Sea Post cancel dropped at Shanghai to enter the US mail stream to the mainland. The second is a full wrapper with parcel post stamp(s) from Shanghai, at the domestic transient second class rate to Cuba, then redirected to within the US State of Georgia.

There is some interesting and properly rated domestic red and green material between Shanghai and the Philippines as well.

I will add there are one or two similar that are of the five parcel post postage due issues, one of which was cut down to a set of stamps with the full cancel and one stamp on piece.

Just a reminder, I have been playing with the JQ, Q and QE postal history, stamps and other goodies since 1983, prior to that date for the QEs.

With examples cited, this mind is certainly blown. Such non-straightforward usages from Shanghai (obviously?) should have existed, but for them to still exist is amazing.