I recently purchased a large old time 13 volume Scott album collection. In the album was a very nice collection of older Dragon/1897 revenue overprint lot. The thing is is most of the stamp completely look authentic but it is odd that most have a circled cancellation from Customs in Shanghai with the date of April 30th 1897 in the middle. I have a feeling it could mean its not a good thing, so i was just hoping to get some good feedback on the reason and the value of such material, regards
I think your instincts are correct. Having all the cancellations nicely centered and having the same date would indicate to me that they were "favor cancels". I don't see anything on the Internet that makes the date suspect in and of itself. Could be collector inspired and the stamps have remained together as a group until they fell in your hands. I can't say what effect that might have on the value for these stamps. The Chinese stamps I have are all modern PRC from the past 25 years. I would think your stamps would still be very desirable.
Looks to me that the collector just stamped on it to make it look cancelled. But without those cancels, the stamps are still good.
The only way I could imagine that it was the collector who got them stamped would be if the collector was the original purchaser and had them hand cancelled when he bought them. I'd be more concerned if they're modern reprints. Do those perforations look right to you?
I was just searching around in Google and came across an interesting article. Dunno if it will help at all, but it was an interesting read: http://www.cpsl.org.uk/articles/watermarks.html
Here is the listing for the full lot http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Chinese-Stamps-/111494868975?pt=Stamps_World_Stamps&hash=item19f59cafef
So, I did send an email to the CPSL (China Philatelic Society of London), had hoped that someone from there would log in and reply with more detail, but I did get a couple of email replies from them. The consensus is that they are "favour cancels" as @Hochstrasse had suggested.
That was a very odd time in Chinese postage as they were switching from the Custom Postage system to the National System valued in dollars, effective 1/1/1897. Remembering that China in that time was rather 'primitive ' in transportation mode, and is a very large country, there was problems of previous stamps arriving in time for overprinting the new values as the order required, and several different stones ( engravings for the images),were used, which resulted in many different combinations. And it was reported that some PO made up their own local varieties to try and obey the Imperial edict. I think it is very possible that Custom system stamps left over in Shanghai, were overprinted, and dated APR 30, 1897. Maybe because the PO didn't have the official new stamps, they were trying to look as official as possible. I would find it a little hard to think it was entirely favors.
I looked through one of my China collections readily available, and I found one 1897 dated Mar.20 CUSTOMS cancellation on revalued 4 Cent on 4. Didn't dig out a catalog to identify Scott #. Mine is off center, but the font of the legend and date appear to be the same as above. Found this reference on the issues. Interesting about the stamps to be made in Great Britain , but initially in Japan as cheaper and closer. http://www.dandotra.com/waterlow.php
