Hong Kong: QEII Stamp Duty - Contract Note

Many thanks for these great posts, Anping! I have never seen these "Contract Note" HK issues before, so once again, I am learning something new, which is usually a very good thing.

As I am still away from home on travel at the moment, I cannot check my Scott catalogue to see if these issues are listed there, but I will try to remember to do it later this week and report my findings, if any.

Anping, I just wanted to let you know that I have arrived back home today, and I checked my 2006 Scott Catalogue for a listing on these HK Contract Note stamps. Sorry to say that Scott does not include them in the listings. The only back-of-the-book stamps listed for HK are a few semi-postals from 1988, postage dues from 1923-2004, and three Japanese Occupation stamps from 1945.

There is nothing on HK revenue stamps at all, a sad omission as far as I'm concerned....

Beryllium Guy , I actually wasn't expecting them to be in Scott. If those were to be included, then the whole raft of stamp duty issues would have to be in there as well (QV through QEII).

In fact, Ryan has asked about the one publication that does cover these:


There is a substantial section dedicated to Hong Kong in Barefoot, although my copy is a now little outdated. As yet I haven't checked the QEII section in there, as it is probable that the article (Page 1) I posted earlier, has much more detail. I refrained from showing all 4 pages, as I felt it may have been too intense for the casual observer. I can of course show the remainder if wanted.

Yang does not list these either, which I'm relieved about. I am not a great fan of this catalogue because of the continual repetition of errors, typos and poor English; issue after issue. Why do they not invest is the use of an English proof reader?

And just a couple of observations about these QE issues:

Some years ago, these were virtually given away by dealers as they seemed to be in abundance and were considered back of the book fodder. More recently, collectors hamstrung by the high prices of postal issues have been seeking out subsidiary material that is both obtainable and affordable. This is one such example. However, the greater demand for these has pushed the prices up considerably.

The examples I have shown were bought by me from one dealer, who listed these at .99p per pair regardless of face value. But I was lucky. There is one particular UK eBay seller/dealer who specialises in Commonwealth revenues, and prices these individually. Just this week he listed some priced between £2.95 to £17.50 each (and that's just up to the $60 value). Some of those I bought had face values up to $100 and $200. Looking on Hipstamp, the pricing is somewhat similar, for those I saw from New Zealand sellers.

So based on the sheer numbers of printing variations (five I think), assembling a collection of these now is itself becoming financially prohibitive for many.

This is also true of the Gibbons catalogue.



Yes, that's correct.

These are nice, tobben63, thanks for posting. I hope that you will find the info you are looking for in the earlier posts in this thread.

Our old friend Clive (Anping) was very knowledgeable about all things Hong Kong, and I am very glad that he has documented so much good info on TSF.

I am not normally a collector of purely fiscal stamps, or of issues from the QEII era, but I really like the design and colors of these stamps.

Examples of contract notes and bill of exchange stamps.Some of the contract note stamps have a hole punched in them.