The China Post
Date: October 22, 2016
By: The China Post news staff and CNA
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Two sets of Chinese stamps said to be among the rarest and most expensive in the
Children check out a multimedia exhibit shaped to resemble the “tilted mailbox” at the World Stamp Championship Exhibition in Taipei on Friday, Oct. 21. (CNA)
Chinese world are being displayed at the 2016 World Stamp Championship Exhibition (PHILATAIPEI), which opened in Taipei on Friday.
One of them is a block of four Qing Dynasty red revenue stamps overprinted with the small words of “one dollar” and used as postage stamps.
Once dubbed the “most expensive Chinese stamps in the Eastern Hemisphere,” the block of four stamps was originally kept by stamp designer Robert Alexis de Villard and then his wife after his death in 1904.
The stamps, believed to be the only remaining block of four of their kind, are now owned by Shanghai stamp collector Ding Jingsong (丁勁松).
Ho Huei-ching (何輝慶), a stamp expert and former professor at National Taiwan University, said that after the stamps were printed, authorities thought the “one dollar” value printed on the stamp was too small to read, so they scrapped the original version and reprinted a new version with the words “one dollar” made bigger. [FULL STORY]
