Trying To Identify If This Is A Stamp?

There's no country name and no obvious currency, so it looks certainly like a privately printed label rather than a postage stamp. Who the guy is I don't know. Intriguing!

This is SG NW11 from the short-lived Yili Republic in North-West China and was issued in 1949.

Wow!
Bravo Nigel.

Fantastic. Thank you

That's some star performance Nigel. I stand (OK, sit down actually...) in awe. As a matter of interest are there any more in that series? Do you have any you can show us?

Thanks guys.

I'm afraid I don't have any stamps from Yili and only a handful from the whole North-West China area.

SG lists 14 stamps from Yili.

The first 10 were handstamped diamond overprints on Sinkiang stamps that were themselves Chinese Sun-Yat Sen stamps with overprints. These were issued in AUgust 1945.

This stamp is one of four in different designs printed from woodblocks all in a deep violet colour. These were issued in February 1949.

This one is the $50.

There is a horizontal $100 stamp but I can't work out what the design is supposed to be. SG doesn't attempt to describe any of these designs.

There is a vertical $200 stamps showing someone on a bicycle.

Finally, there is a horizontal $500 stamp which I think shows miners working.

These stamps reflect what to me is a pretty obscure bit of history.

SG says that in 1945 the Uygur inhabitants of the Yili valley in N.W. Xinjiang on the border with Kazakhstan declared their independence of China and issued stamps.

SG goes on to say that the Yili Republic joined the Chinese People's Republic at the end of 1949.

Here's a rather different perspective from Wikipedia which puts this in the context of a Soviet-inspired revolt against the (Kuomintang) Chinese Republic.

(I suspect that the "Yili Republic" and "East Turkestan Republic" refer to the same thing.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secon...tan_Republic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ili_Rebellion

Nice i.d. work.

Here is an auction listing that depicts the four woodblock stamps nigelc describes:

http://www.mossgreen.com.au/view-au...nd-of-1949-4

Well nice research on this. It would seem used examples must be close to non-existent.