The Chinas Identification

Is this a good consistent differentiation between the Chinas.

In the UK, there wouldn't be a differentiation between pre- and post-1949 China. Formosa/Taiwan would be the only separate entity.

To me the first two in Angore's post look the same?


Peter

It is the same up to the last character (leftmost character). The characters for the country name (right 4 characters, reading right to left, Republic of China) are indeed the same. The 2 leftmost characters read the equivalent of "post"/"postal" in the first pic, and "postage"/"stamp"/"postage stamp" in the 2nd pic. The change is essentially a clarification/designation of usage.

The main changes in country name occurred in 1912 (after the declaration of the Republic of China in 1911, no longer Imperial China issues), and then in 1949 with the addition of the character for "people" for the People's Republic of China. In your last pic, "people" replaces the character Hua, and the character sequence is changed as well as the direction (read left to right). However, this is not the wording that appears on all general issue PRC stamps. See the early 1949 issues, for example. The key difference is the inclusion of the character "people" (3rd character from left) -- that distinguishes almost all non-overprinted & non-regional PRC issues. Therefore, you will see 2 different texts for PRC stamps, especially in the very early issues.

Yes I saw the transition was a little different and recognized the ren (people) like in mei guo ren which means an American or beautiful people . Learned in Mandarin class.no comment on that.

LOL, Al! Technically, it means people of the beautiful country. Whether that makes the people beautiful or not...