Here are some regular stamps with Dr Sun Yat Sen then stamps from a special Sino-Swedish Expedition published to support the journey of a Swede named Hedin. From wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Hedin "Between 1927 and 1935 Sven Hedin led an international Sino-Swedish Expedition which investigated the meteorological, topographic and prehistoric situation in Mongolia, the Gobi desert and Xinjiang.
Sven Hedin described it as a peripatetic university in which the participating scientists worked almost independently, while he—like a local manager—negotiated with the authorities, made decisions, organized whatever was necessary, raised funds and recorded the route followed. He gave archaeologists, astronomers, botanists, geographers, geologists, meteorologists and zoologists from Sweden, Germany and China an opportunity to participate in the expedition and carry out research in their areas of specialty.
Hedin met Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing, who thereupon became a patron of the expedition. The Sino-Swedish Expedition was honored with a Chinese postage stamp series which had a print run of 25,000. The four stamps show camels at a camp with the expedition flag and bear the Chinese text, "Postal Service of the Prosperous Middle Kingdom" and in Latin underneath, "Scientific Expedition to the Northwestern Province of China 1927-1933". A painting in the Beijing Palace Museum entitled Nomads in the Desert served as model for the series. Of the 25,000 sets, 4,000 were sold across the counter and 21,500 came into the possession of the expedition. Sven Hedin used them to finance the expedition, selling them for a price of five dollars per stamp."
This is a cover sent by Sven Hedin to his sister Alma I found on the wiki site.
I always liked this set of four, and it is all in old Chinese characters, so I don't have a clue about it. Perhaps someone from the Chinese Stamp Society will help me out. Just found a link to a Chinese Stamp Society http://www.chinastampsociety.org/index.cfm, and wrote the secretary an email. Interesting he is from Columbus OH where my parents met. Perhaps stamps might still be a vehicle for international understanding. I am not into collecting for money, rather for learning about people, values and history. So, we'll see what connections I might make!
Other stamps I think are interesting. Waiting for some history on these too. :-)
I think this commemorates something about the US Constitution and I really don't know. Always liked the cool big map of China!
No comments:
Post a Comment