I have spent much of the last two days trying to decipher the mystery of this stamp.
The characters are Traditional Chinese.
I have thus far managed to translate, painstakingly, the following:
Upper Left Corner: "use/employ"
Upper Right Corner: "make/manufacture"
Lower Right Corner: ""gold"
Lower Left Corner: "one's living"
In the center, the larger characters, top to bottom are: "one" and 'mace" (a unit of weight, about 1/10th of an ounce)
Inset right center, top to bottom: "Show/Manifest/demonstrate" (I have not deciphered the character to the right of the top right inset yet), "trust/believe/letter", and bottom right inset, ""use/employ"
Inset Left Center, I have not yet translated the top character, but the bottom seems to translate as "department"
I think this was used to certify the contents or value of a package, and was used internally to whatever government was in force at the time.
Stamps issued by China from the outset of China's being opened up to Europe used some English words, and some Latin numerals as a concession to the outside world. This makes no such concessions.
That flower LOOKS like a Japanese chrysanthemum but does not have as many petals as the chrysanthemums used too denote Japan on their stamps, not even as far back as when Japan was opened up.
Also, although this does not bar this stamp from coming from countries other than China, the use of Traditional Chinese does rule out Korea, which had its own alphabet by the 19th Century
I will have to consult some specialized libraries to finish this.
Posted 03/27/2020 10:30 pm
