A Stamp Story I Want To Share

One of my main auction sites is Weeda Stamps. I live in China so Bev at Weeda puts some nice stamps on the envelope and mails me my winnings here in China. They usually take about two weeks to arrive via regular mail.

When you go to the Post Office here to mail anything bigger than a letter, you have to leave it unopened so they can paw through it. They have tape there so you can seal the package for mailing after they inspect it. When you get a package, they tear it open then sloppily tape it back up. Zero respect for personal property.

I purchased a few items totalling $200 CDN at Weeda Auctions on 8 April. They finally came in today. I had thought they were gone forever since I would not put it past someone at the post office to simply pocket the envelope due to the nice stamps. However, I was told that it had simply gotten misplaced then found. I had an F3 in there, which I had been looking to get for a long time. With the F3, I complete the BOB section of my Canada album. I was quite happy when they gave me the envelope today.

I always give the used stamps to the librarian, who gets quite excited when I give him stamps.

Anyway, just thought I would share.

Congrats on the F3! Many of us are still missing that stamp ...

Brian

Great story TomSwift...We do hear lots of stories of no respect for the average man/woman in China...Its hard to believe that a government can treat people like that..But, a good story and a good outcome...good for you..

Great story. Unfortunately it seems like most of the world is now reverting back to these practices.

"show me your papers" is now common place worldwide.

Without getting political as that's not my intention at all but rather just more curious than anything but could you send and/or receive a package to/from N.Korea or even the U.S. without it being totally dissected, injected, inspected..etc?

Also, Congrats on the new arrival to your Canadian collection!

I get packages sent to me from Canada that have US customs tape on them and a note inside saying it was inspected.

Tommy, WERT, looks like China is borrowing sneaky ideas from the USA NSA...Only difference is that sneaking private citizens has evolved to e-mails ...Quite a lot different than in the good old days of wax seals....

China is very open in their control and snooping. Due to all of the terrorist attacks recently, they check every bag at every subway entrance and you now need to open your bags when getting on a bus. There are armed soldiers and police at every border crossing and there are police everywhere at public places. Of course, I gave in my passport to get the visa updated exactly at the same time when this crackdown started so I am trapped in my small town for a few weeks.

A few years ago, I got a knock on the door. I opened it to find three policemen, who just walked into my apartment. My Chinese is pitiful and of course their English is also non-existant but all they were doing was ensuring that I actually lived there. As a foreigner, I have to check into the police every time I leave the country. In theory, I have to report to the police department every time I leave the province, but even our police chief here thinks this is nuts and ignores the rule. Ignoring rules is a common past time in China, since the government is so secretive, they don't like telling people what the rules are sometimes. As well, there is does not seem to be any fear at all of police in this country.

This is an interesting place to live. I am still planning a trip with a Chinese-speaknig friend to the two story stamp and coin trading mall in Shanghai. I have been there before but with the language barrier, it makes it difficult to ask for things to see and such.

Tom Swift wrote




Some time ago on a German forum a German teacher living in China asked for German stamps for one of her pupils who had started collecting Germany, so in January I sent some stuff. The letter has not arrived yet!

Klaus

They recently passed a new rule that states you cannot receive any international package with a value over $150 USD. Taxes are high here so people buy luxury goods overseas and mail them back to China. You can't even pay duty on the item. A teacher here who is over 2.1 meters tall had a shipment refused due to its price. It was a pair of running shoes. There is no way he could ever find a pair of running shoes to fit his feet in China. Usually you can pay a bribe (or a "service charge") to get things done but the post office would not budge. You never know when things will be accepted or not.

The domestic postal system on the other hand is very cheap and very effective. I can order a package online and get it the next day, for a shipping charge of around 3 dollars. International is where problems can arise.

Wow reading that really makes me appreciate where I live. That stamp & coin mall sounds spectacular!

TomSwift..are they controlling your internet...I mean, watching, monitoring everyone..??

Yep. They have hundreds of thousands of people who do nothing but monitor the internet for things they feel are subversive. You never know if you are doing something wrong, which is what they like. Keeps you on your toes. I just ignore it. A VPN is your friend in China.

Years ago, when they were really starting to crack down on online access, I used to write comments to the censors. Used to do Google searches like "F*K you, you stupid f**ing censors. Have some pride and get a real job" or things to that effect. Do that a few times and soon you get what is called an internet holiday. They shut down your access for a few minutes. Tons of fun.

Could you post an image of the F3? Just curious...

Or would you have to run the image by Ed Snowden first?

Well, I don't want to boast...

Living in China, my stamp collection is in storage in a small town about three hours from Vancouver. I only get there once a year so what I do is purchase stamps over the year and then when I go back for the summer, I put them in my Davo album. My goal is to finish off the complete album in mint or proofs so every year I make a list of what I plan to hunt for until my next visit to the storage locker.

Enclosed is three pictures of what I have purchased so far. I have Scott #59 on its way to Canada, since I will be back next month and it might not reach here in time, and I plan on picking up Scott #45 before next month. If I can get #45, I will complete the Jubilees up to 50 cents, all of the small queens, and all of the large queens in used.

The goal next year is the 5 high-value jubilees and maybe 21 and 29, the lower priced large queens as well as 14 and 15. After that it gets more murky since the prices are getting pretty crazy. We will see what happens then. Probably proofs to fill the last spaces. I have all five albums of Davo hingeless and every page is filled except for the first three.