Japan: 1921 Qingdao Military / China Offices Stamp

I have been wondering that as well. I see on eBay that there is a rare 3 sen Japan stamp referred to as the Quingdao 1926 or 1921. Listers are asking for big money for the stamp but I am not seeing any reference to it in my Scott classics catalogue. Google search turns up the Chinese city of Qingdao that was occupied by Japan in 1938, well after the dates shown. From the original post I see no stamps that look unusual. They all appear common stamps. Hopefully some members that specialize in Japan can shed some light on this particular stamp. 

Janek (janekp ), I have continued to search, and I have finally found an image of what the rare Japan, Sc M4 Qingdao stamp should look like:



Apologies that the image is not great, but it is the best I could find.  The underlying stamp is plentiful and inexpensive, making something like this a perfect target for forged overprints, and the catalogue confirms that.  I do not know if the above image is a genuine example or not, but at least it shows you what the double-overprinted stamp is supposed to look like.

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Edit: A bit more digging got me the information that the above image was listed on eBay as a reproduction, not a genuine example.  Dave (Philatarium ), by any chance do you have access to an image of a genuine example of this rare stamp through your Japan collectors' network?  If so, please post it, as now I am curious to see what a genuine example really looks like.

This stamp has been discussed previously on TSF...

I should point out that the pics I quoted from older TSF posts are for M1-M3, not M4. M4 is the overprint on the Japanese Offices in China stamp. The overprint on M4, although the same 2 characters, is actually different (more obviously if you know how the characters are written, but basically the overprint has certain lines thicker).

The only pic I have of M4 is a the old-style "photocopy", coming from a 1971 Siegal auction. I am not going to bother posting the pic, because it is on-piece and so heavily canceled that both the Offices overprint and the Military Use overprint are barely discernable.

Philatarium , there are actually several articles about the Quingdao (Tsingtao) overprint, one of which is several pages long and quite informative but essentially, what Beryllium Guy and khj posted and what salentin  originally posted will only be repeated by me. There are no images of this specific stamp, however, in any of the articles I found in Japanese Philately.

I did find an image of this stamp, different from Beryllium Guy 's image, which was originally sold at auction in Hong Kong in 2013. The image is below:



The auction listing states the following:

Japan, Military Stamp, 1921, Tsingtao Provisional, 3s rose, Boshi (substation of Tsingtao) postmark, fresh, a lovely example of this rarity, Fine to Very Fine, 1964 J.R. Hughes letter and 2008 I.S.J.P. certificate.
J.S.C.A. MP1; ¥750,000 (HK$ 56,400). Scott M4; $4,750 (HK$ 36,820).
Estimate HK$ 20,000 - 30,000.

The webpage where I found this is here:

www.stampcircuit.com/stamp-Auction/3693638/lot-703-japan-miscellaneous-china-hong-kong-japan-and-other-asia-stamps-and

I found the image by clicking on the box where is states "No image available" and the image of the stamp popped up in my browser.

janekp, none of the stamps you posted are this stamp. The stamp that stands out for me in terms of interest is the same stamp that Beryllium Guy pointed out, the 3 sen, Japan Offices in China. It is not particularly valuable but it would be one that I would want to add to my collection and it has what is likely to be a partial roman-letter Canton postmark. That is the only comb postmark used in China that has that particular combination of letters, "nto" so I am pretty sure that is a correct id.

Darrin darkormex , my apologies for tagging you like a game of hot potato, but I appreciate your taking the baton (to mix metaphors) and digging deep to unearth the information. My thanks also to khj and Chris Beryllium Guy (I've finally learned how to spell 'beryllium' -- 1 'r', 2 'l's)!

So, having not read any of the links you guys have posted, is it correct to say that the Quingdao (Tsingtao) overprint is a double-overprint of the 2 軍事 'gunji' ('military') characters on the Scott M4?

It's always a pleasure to work with the academicians and scholars (and nice guys, to boot!) on this board.

Thank you very much!!

Many thanks for the posts from Werner (salentin), Dave (Philatarium), Kim, and Darrin (darkormex).  It has been an interesting investigation, and I have now learned about a stamp about which I previously knew nothing.  It also looks like the reproduction block image that I found is at least a reasonable representation of what the actual stamp should look like.  These clearly don't come up very often if the last auction reference Darrin could find is from 10 years ago.  Too bad these are so rare and expensive, as I would love to have one for my collection.

I am a bit stumped at the multiple inaccurate claims of offering this stamp that I found on eBay.  I know that misidentifications happen regularly on that platform, but offering common 3-Sen Rose stamps without any overprint at all as this rare M4 stamp is just ridiculous.  I am not sure if the sellers simply don't know how to read the catalogue listing correctly or if they are just trying to rip off an uninformed buyer.  In Scott, at least, one needs to read the listing carefully to work out what the stamp should look like, since no image is provided in the catalogue.

Perhaps we should apply an adaptation of "Occam's Razor" that rings true to me:
Anyway, thanks again to all who chipped in on this discussion.  It's been a good one!

Minor correction to Kim's earlier post, quoted above:  Actually, the pics from the older TSF posts are for M2-M3 and M5, but not M1.  The M1 is the Military Overprint on the 3-Sen Rose from the earlier Chrysanthemum series, not the later one shown in Werner's post and also the underlying stamp for the M4.

No worries, Kim (khj), you are aces in my book, and I really appreciate your many contributions to TSF, and in this case, how you tracked down Werner's (salentin) old posts on the Military Overprints and found an image of a genuine M4, which I had not been able to do.  Kudos to you for all that!

Aside from that, as you already know, I have misread the Scott Catalogue on more than one occasion myself, despite having been using it for almost my entire collecting life.  I will look forward to seeing you at those club meetings from now on!

As a collector of Japan for many years myself, I am just surprised that I had never heard of this rare Qingdao overprint before until Janek (janekp) raised the question while trying to identify his own Japanese stamps.  It's one of the reasons I love TSF.  I can learn something new every day, which is one of the joys of life for me.

Stay stampy, all!