1890's/Early 1900's Imperial China Stamps With Chinese Postmarks

Hello again - ! In going through these very old stamps from Imperial China and comparing sales results, I noticed the Chinese postmarks seem to help make a difference in value. Is this correct? Just trying to get my bearings in the handling of a lot of old stamps from a large Minkus collection that I inherited. Any bit of help would be much appreciated! I had mainly noticed this auction fetched over $5k and the book is very low. So I'm trying to research the values of the postmark apparently ?

Thanks again! J.

There are often many more factors to take into account, rather than just the cancellation. Cancels from some places do increase the value, but it is usually because those particular ones are rare.

Sorry - here is the link to the auction I mentioned above: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Imperial-C...AOSwPLFfnUl9

Ok thank you. I mean - how would a Californian like myself be able to decipher the postmark !?? Is it generally just more valuable to have the Chinese postmark or is there a specific few to look out for? Thx!

If you want identification help, I suggest you post a few image(s) here and someone could identify the city or town for you. There are thousands upon thousands of cancels in various types from various regions and time periods. The vast majority are obviously going to be from the major population and business centers and will generally just be priced as a basic used stamp.

Or do you just plan to be a treasure hunter? First of all, you shouldn't depend on just one ebay auction to determine a price for a cancel. The items at net price alongside that auction are tremendously overpriced, and the auction price is also suspect to me. If you plan to discover rare cancels, you will need to learn to identify the stamp issues and genuine cancels and will need to develop a reading knowledge of Chinese characters. There are Chinese-speaking collectors and dealers that have the jump on you. Are you prepared for doing what is needed?

This is why it is so difficult to be versed in so many nuances by country. Case in point, following is one I have with a Taiyuan (I assume Taiwan) cancel that is most likely very common.

Taiyuan is a chinese town in Shanxi province

Thanks for the responses guys. Here is the main one I was wondering about:

Thanks. I guess I have to research China more?

There are many who should read what hy-brasil wrote above. Very important and every word is very true.