Numbers with dragons on them.

The related pictures of this theme are as follows:

The related pictures of this theme are as follows:

The related pictures of this theme are as follows:

Dalong stamps

Speaking of stamps in China, we should start with the earliest stamp in China-"Dalong Stamp". 100 years has not dimmed its color, and people have long been eager to explore many secrets of the birth of this small stamp.

The design of the Dalong stamp is the image of a five-claw Dalong, which is called "Yunlong Play Pearl Map". The face value of stamps is one silver coin, three silver coins and five silver coins.

According to common sense, stamps should be issued by the postal department, but the first set of stamps in China has an indissoluble bond with the customs.

1840 After the Opium War, the invading army seized power crazily in China, and the customs was even more controlled by foreigners. At that time, it was an Englishman Hurd who served as the General Administration of Customs and Taxation of the Qing government. Hurd is a China hand, and he has long coveted the power of China Post. Hurd had a close relationship with Li Hongzhang, so he tried his best to get the Qing government to agree to let the customs run postal services on a trial basis.

China's postal service was first piloted by China Customs. The postal pilot of China Customs first started from Tianjin Customs. 1878, Hurd, the State Administration of Taxation, appointed Detering, Tianjin Customs, to organize the postal service of China Customs, and set up a pilot project of postal service of Tianjin Customs in five customs offices in Beijing, Yingkou, Yantai and Shanghai.

On March, 1878, the Tianjin Customs Correspondence Hall, which was built by De Cui Lin, Tax Office of Tianjin Customs, was officially opened to the public. This is the first post office correspondence station modeled after the western model in China's modern history. The old Customs Building, located on the bank of Haihe River, used to be the office of the Customs, where the Customs Hakodate was located, and where the first set of stamps in China was issued.

After the opening of Hakodate, in order to facilitate the sending and receiving of mail and standardize the management of postal services by customs, Detering sorted out the first set of customs stamps-Dalong stamps in the modern history of China.

According to historical records, Detering originally sent an order for customized stamps to Britain one year before the opening of Letter House, but it was finally abandoned because of the long time period. In desperation, he had to ask the Shanghai Customs Registration Office to print a batch of stamps in case of emergency.

Although it is an emergency measure, the printing quality of these stamps should still be excellent, basically according to Detering's idea at that time, without too many traces. At that time, the birth of a small stamp was so difficult.

The design of the Dalong stamp is the image of a five-claw Dalong, which is called "Yunlong Play Pearl Map". The face value of the three stamps is silver, and the postage is in the unit of 1 silver 1%, that is, 1 cent. Ren, editor of Tianjin Post Literature and History Museum, told us what a penny is. Refers to the equivalent of sixteen copper coins at that time. At that time, a copper coin could buy a sesame seed cake, so sixteen copper coins were quite expensive, not to mention that three points, five points and five points were equivalent to eighty copper coins.

Although the printing of Dalong stamps was completed in Shanghai, Tianjin Customs was the postal management center and postal organization center of China at that time. Therefore, the first batch of "Dalong stamps" sold in Shanghai and other places were all issued from Tianjin.

Zhang Zhiyu, a member of the All-China Philatelic Association, thinks that there are two reasons for choosing Tianjin. First, because Tianjin is the hub of land and water transportation, no traffic can be separated from it. Second, because Beiyang Minister Li Hongzhang is in Tianjin, which is what people say.

It is said that the first set of stamps had been designed with various designs, such as "Elephant of Ten Thousand Years" and "Pagoda of Six Harmonies", and finally the dragon was selected. So is the designer of the Dragon Stamp from China or a foreigner?

Most people think that the design of "Dragon Stamp" has a strong flavor of China traditional culture, and the Chinese on the stamp is more fluent than English and Arabic numerals, so China people are most likely to design it.

In the feudal era of China, as a symbol of imperial power, "Dragon" embodied supreme authority. When the Qing Dynasty issued the first set of stamps in ancient China, it naturally attached great importance to the choice of patterns.

The world's first stamp was issued in Britain on 1840. After a lapse of 38 years, 1878 Dalong stamp came out, which opened the prelude to the issuance of stamps in China.

In some literary and artistic works, the heads of the emperor and empress dowager are used as stamps. Is it possible? Zhang Zhiyou, a member of the All-China Philatelic Association, said that since Britain issued stamps in the11940s, all countries in the world imitated black pennies, so they all took the monarch's head as a symbol, that is, their so-called national emblem or king to reflect this country. So China has one characteristic. Although China was a dynasty, he didn't want to show his true colors, that is to say, his true colors would never be revealed, because he was still far from seeing the emperor at ordinary times.

Dalong Stamp has been printed continuously 1 10,000 pieces. More than a hundred years have passed, and less than one tenth of the total survived. Old tickets in good condition are quite rare, with less than 500 sealed envelopes, which are very precious.

In the historical materials found so far, there is no direct record of the name of "Dalong stamp". Therefore, experts infer that the name of "Dalong Stamp" is different from that of another set of stamps with dragons as patterns, so it is called "Dalong" and the other set is relatively called "Xiaolong".

Xiaolong Stamp 1885 was officially issued, which was the last set of stamps issued during the postal closing period of the Qing Dynasty. It was issued mainly because the Dalong stamp version at that time was worn out and could not be used any more. Its design is basically the same as that of Dalong stamps, but the ticket width and format are smaller than that of Dalong stamps, and it is also a set of three.

Later, the Qing government set up the Ministry of Post to take over the customs post. 19 1 1 year, the postal service finally broke away from the customs, ending the nearly half-century history of the customs pilot postal service, but this "historical crosstalk" finally laid the cornerstone of China Post.

Today, Tianjin Daqing Post Office Building, a baroque building, is the location of the first Daqing Post Office in China, the only preserved Daqing Post Office in China, and a landmark building symbolizing the starting point of modern postal service in China.

The legendary experience of "Dalong Stamp" has surpassed a small stamp itself. When we face these mottled historical sites again, they are more like a talking old man, telling us many stories.

[This post was edited by the author on July 26th, 2007 +06: 10: 37]