The British Library and internal notes state that Specimen overprints of the Postal Stationery were provided to the Crown Agents, however, examination of the Bechuanaland Archive at the British Library shows that the examples provided to them do not have the Specimen overprint. It is believed that those Specimens were created for internal use and that the examples provided to the UPU had no overprint, which would explain why no examples have ever been seen on the market or, indeed, seen at all outside of the British Library archive.
An order for 1085 news wrappers was placed with the original Nil requisition for the overprinted stamps and 1480 were sent by De La Rue on that requisition (392 additional were also printed for specimens but never received a specimen overprint). In May 1917, an order was placed for an additional 1000 but by September 1918 only a total of 395 news wrappers had been issued1. No used copies are known and unused copies are rare. The surviving stock was destroyed after the closure of the Treaty Ports in 1922 and a total of 1630 were returned to London 2.
An initial quantity of 5500 postal cards were ordered with the Nil Requisition Number 70/16 in December 1916 and 5073 were overprinted and supplied. These postal cards were printed at the same time as the 70,000 cards ordered by Hong Kong on De La Rue Requisition 72/16. An additional 10,000 were sent with requisition A. Interestingly, these 10,000 cards were ordered separately from the A requisition on June 2 1917 and entered into the De La Rue Daybooks on June 23, 1917 as Requisition 63/17.
Unfortunately, the rate for postcards increased to 1 ½ cents on 15 February 1918 and so the entire stock of requisition A and the vast majority of the 1c Brown Postal Cards with reply (which were split apart) were overprinted in Hong Kong to create the 1 ½ cent surcharge. Consequently, very few examples of the unused 1 Cent Brown Postal Card remain and no used examples or images of them have been found to date. Lee Scamp states that one copy is reported, used to Hammersley, but it has not been seen3 and Castiglione reports an ERD and LRD which are listed in the census 4.
An initial quantity of 1540 were ordered and 1140 1c brown postal cards with reply were sent along with the Nil Requisition in December 1916. The vast majority of these were split and combined with the remaining stock of the regular 1 cent brown postal card to be overprinted 1 ½ cents to cover the new increased postcard rate. One used example of the message portion of the postal card is known, as well as one example of the reply portion of the card. Very few unused and un-split examples are believed to remain, likely less than 10.
When the local post card rate increased from 1c to 1 ½ c on February 15 1918, existing stocks of the 1 cent brown postal card and the separated 1c plus 1c reply postal cards were overprinted locally to reflect the change. This created a total of 11,360 cards with the new rate. Consequently, there are three subtypes of the 1 ½ c : the overprinted 1c brown postal card, the overprinted message side of the split 1c postal card, and the overprinted reply side. One used example of the message side of a split postal card has been certified by the BPA.
One example with a favor cancel from Shanghai is known dated 30 November 1922 but it had no message, no address and did not pass through the mail .5.
The example listed and shown dated November 9, 1929 was probably philatelic, given the difference in the date of the message and the C.D.S. date. It was underpaid for 2c rate from Wei Hai Wei to Shanghai (The Chinese 2c post card rate was applicable to Wei-Hai-Wei from 1922-30), but not marked postage
due .6
A total of 8,750 4c carmine postal cards were ordered and 8,347 were sent for overprinting for the Nil Requisition and an additional 6,000 were sent with the A Requisition. It is unknown how many were sold or how many were overprinted to create the short-lived 6c on 4c postal card, but it is known that 2,332 were listed in stock in Hong Kong in September 1926.
Oddly, records from the DLR Archive seem to show a quantity of 6,000 cards as being printed along with Requisition D. Interestingly, this same requisition not only ordered 6,000 of the 4c postal card but also ordered 1,000 Size F, 7,000 Size G, 2,500 Size H, 1,000 Size H2, and 2,500 of the Size K Registered Envelopes. No mention has been made in any of the literature of this requisition and this appears to be the first time that this has been noted.
The postal cards were provided to the individual offices wrapped in groups of 10.
Virtually nothing is known about the 6 postal card overprint. Research has shown that there was a short lived overseas postcard rate of 6c (up from the previous rate of 4c) that was in effect from January 1922 until the closure of the Agencies in November 1922. Consequently, it is not known if a separate issue of 4c cards were produced and overprinted in Britain or whether existing 4c cards were overprinted in Hong Kong.
An order for 10,500 of the 1 ½ cent orange postal cards was placed by the Crown Agents on the 7th of October 1918 and were sent to Somerset House later that month. They must have reached the Agencies by January 19197. As there were still nearly 8,000 of the overprinted 1 ½ c on 1c brown postal cards in stock in Hong Kong in September 1918, it is believed that very few of the 1 ½ c orange ever saw use. Unused copies are very rare and only one used copy has ever been reported.
The 1 ½ cent postcard for regular Hong Kong use had been ordered by the Crown Agents on the 1st of August 1917. This was followed up on August 15th 1917 with an inquiry about the Chinese characters being used, which were then submitted to the Chinese embassy for clarification. On the 28th August 1917, the Crown Agents approved the design, stating that the Chinese Embassy had checked it.
| Description | Date and Req. # | Qty Ordered from De La Rue | Qty send for Overprinting | Quantity Delivered | EKU | LKU | Census | Port | Destination | Franking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newswrapper Dec 1916 Nil | 1450 | 1480 | 1085 | None | None | None Known | ||||
| 2c Green Newswrapper | Nov 1917 A | 1000 | 1110 | 1000 | N/A | N/A | N/A | |||
| 1c Brown | Dec 1916 Nil | 5550 | 5073 | 4673 ? | Dec 23 1919 | May 10 1920 | 1919 (Castiglione - Not Seen) 23 Dec 1919 10 May 1920 | |||
| 1c Brown | Nov 1917 Unknown |
10000 | 10260 | 10000 | N/A | N/A | N/A | |||
| 1c Postal Reply Brown | Dec 1916 Nil | 1500 | 1540 | 1140 | ||||||
| 1c Brown Postal Card Message Half | Dec 1916 Nil | 1500 | 1540 | 1140 | 28 Jul 1919 | 28 Jul 1919 | ||||
| 1c Brown Postal Card Reply Half |
Dec 1916 Nil | 1500 | 1540 | 1140 | 23-Feb-18 | 23-Feb-18 | 2/23/1918 (Scamp - Harmon Fine Collection) | |||
1 1/2c on 1c Brown Postal Card |
Local O/P | 11360 (Approx. as this included the two types listed below) | 5 Mar 1918 |
9 Nov 1929 |
5 Mar 1918 |
|||||
| 1 1/2c on 1c Brown Postal Card (Made from overprint on Message portion of split 1c Brown Postal Card) | Local O/P | 1100 (Approx) | One Example (Certified by BPA) | |||||||
1 1/2c on 1c Brown Postal Card |
Local O/P | 1100 (Approx) | ||||||||
| Dec 1916 Nil | 8500 | 8750 | 8347 | 25 Apr 1917 | 9 May 1926 | 16 Mar 1917 |
||||
| 4c Carmine Postal Card | Nov 1917 A | 6000 | 6200 | 6000 | N/A | N/A | N/A | |||
| 4c Carmine Postal Card | 6000 | N/A | N/A | N/A | ||||||
| 6c on 4c Carmine Postal Card | 1922 | 1922 | 22 Apr 1922 | 28-Dec-22 | 22 Apr 1922 |
|||||
| 1 ? c Orange Postal Card | 19-Jan | 10000 | 10500 | 10500 | 9-May-23 | 9-May-23 | 5/9/1923 (Castiglione - not seen) | |||
| Description | Date and Req. # | Qty Ordered from De La Rue | Qty send for Overprinting | Quantity Delivered | EKU | LKU | Census | Port | Destination | Franking |
Most of the above information has come from the China overprint section in the HKSC online postal stationery monograph and the absolutely amazing research done by Lee Scamp, which can be found at Hong Kong Study Circle PapersHong Kong Study Circle Papers (scroll down the link to find).
