Help With France China Colonies

Can anyone give me some reference material for these issues? Any feedback would be helpful.







There's one more piece missing that I lost when cleaning the room they were in. They were all out at the time so the air condition must have carried it somewhere...
I apologize for the fuzziness but it's a zoomed in photo:

The standard reference is Yvert's French Colonies catalogue, but I think it's out of print at present. Maury also produced an Asian colonies catalogue, also out of print. Gibbons produces a French Colonies catalogue in English.

https://www.nordfrim.com/sg15k21

Most of your stamps are from Indo-China, rather than China.

Thank you for the correction, Geoff. Yes, apparently Vietnam was meshed in with China quite heavily in those days, hence the Saigon, Tonkin postmarks etc.

I was particularly curious about the 25c and 4c imperfs, but found out from users KRelyea and Greaden that these were issued to French colonies at the time:
https://goscf.com/t/76680&SearchTerms=France,China

Very neat!
According to the forums, seems like early indochine catalogues are still a work in progress.

No. Indochina is a made up name, and was a (silly) Western attempt to describe a large area with millions of people, and multiple languages and ethnicities, with a single convenient word that showed the influence of two larger civilizations (India and China, obviously) on Southeast Asia. While accurate to a degree, it also short-changed the civilizations of SE Asia. To say that Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were "enmeshed" with China is not at all accurate (you said "apparently," which shows this geography and history are new to you, but life is about learning, IMO).

There are basically two groups of French Chinese-related stamps: the "Chine" overprints; and the Indo-Chinese stamps overprinted for use in French offices within China (Hoi-Hao etc).

I don't think that catalogues for the area are works in progress. Those I mentioned should give you all the information you need - probably more.

The imperfs with a CCH postmark are French General Colonies used in Cochin China, which is the area around Saigon that became one of the components of French Indochina.

A lot of the stamps on the first two rows are later stamps of the French General Colonies also used in Indochina. I see postmarks from Saigon and Tonkin.


Those overprinted Indochine are exactly that.

Most of the remaining stamps are from the French post offices in China, mainly in Shanghai. China was not in the Universal Postal Union, so any mail from China sent abroad needed a stamp from one of the European post offices.

France had two separate postal networks in China: one consisted of offices of the Indochina postal services, which were along the Chinese coast or inland along trade routes from Hanoi.

The second was in northern cities, mainly Shanghai and Beijing, where the French consulates operated postal services. Early stamps were normal French ones only recognizable by the cancels. Later on, stamps for this service were overprinted "Chine", and sometimes Chinese characters were used to specify the postal rate.

An interesting site in French...
http://www.franceasie19.sitew.fr/Philatelie.f.htm

AHH! I think I understand now. I was conflating everything shown above as part of what is generally considered "Indochina" by collectors today. So the only stamps officially attributed as "Indochina" are the plates in the third picture, correct?
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Greaden- Thank you for that detailed explanation. I should separate what I have here into their proper categories if I'm going to learn more about them. Tell me if I have this (mostly) correct regarding what's here in accordance with standard "Indochina" catologue attribution:

A) CCH Imperfs: NOT considered "Indochina", despite being used inside those regions early on.

B) Chine overprints (used in FRENCH post offices in mainland China): NOT considered "Indochina".

C) Chine overprints (used in INDOCHINA post offices inside China): NOT considered "Indochina".

D) Stamps overprinted "Indochine": ARE considered "Indochina" by attribution.


If the above is true, I have 2 queries:
First, as you stated here:


But isn't it also true that imperforated pieces can be recognized as such?
As for the Postage Due issues, I've found other imperfs from differing French colonies but with different colors. Is there anything mentioned about this in the catalogues? Or any mention about potential differences in imperfs depending on the Colony?

Secondly, I can understand why B, C, and D would be "No", "No", and "Yes" in terms of Indochina attribution, but if the imperfed pieces were used in the same area,


shouldn't they also be considered part of the Indochina Series? Seems like they be worth paying attention to for anyone collecting the series.

Thanks again, and please bear with me!
As classic papers reiterates, I'm not too keen on the terminology

Being "enmeshed" and something being "meshed" together (the word that I used) have two different meanings.
Think about a fish being "enmeshed" into a "mesh" net. There is nothing inherently adversarial about the tangible state of the net. I was simply using it to describe the cultural situation at the time... Certainly didn't mean to sound insensitive!

It's a great comment though. It's amazing how what was "convenient" for them then is so inconvenient for me now

This is incredible, cupram! I have a feeling it will answer most of my questions.
Hope I can find something like this beauty-


I also found the missing 4c under my couch!
Here's a clearer picture:

The general issues with Cochin-China postmarks are listed under Cochin-China in French catalogues as precursors.

"As precursors"! Okay, that makes sense. Thanks Geoff!

Thank you again, Cupram! Your article answered all my questions, and was extremely thorough! It even discussed the spike in collectors' interest by obtaining all the "colors of France", and has certainly made me want to start hunting them!

I'll post what it says about the imperforated general issues to neatly tie up this thread:




Here's another amusing fact I found regarding the French government's need to specify each colony with overprints:



People were making a lucrative profit by trafficking large quantities of the general issue!

I think an exciting potential subset for collectors would be locating imperforated "sage" and "Ceres" types on postage from mainland France. Such a person most likely got a discount on their shipping rates...

Thanks to everyone again for your comments. Very helpful.