Ji 50 "Seven Hundred Years of Guan Hanqing's Drama Creation" first day cover
▎▎Stamps ▎▎
On October 28, 1957, the executive meeting of the World Peace Council approved the list of world cultural celebrities to be commemorated in 1958, namely: Chinese dramatist Guan Hanqing (700 years of theatrical activities), Iranian poet Sadi (700 years after the publication of his famous novel "The Rose Garden"), Italian mathematician and physicist Torricelli (350 years of birth), Japanese painter Mitsuharin Ogata (300 years of birth), French painter Dominier (150 years of birth), and British poet and political commentator Milton (350 years of birth) , Swedish writer Rajelev (100th anniversary).
At this time, with the theme of "commemorating the 700th anniversary of Guan Hanqing's drama creation", the Chinese cultural circles published "Guan Hanqing's Opera Collection" and a collection of essays by contemporary scholars studying Guan Hanqing.
The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the People's Republic of China also issued commemorative stamps and souvenir sheets of "700 Years of Guan Hanqing's Drama Creation" on June 20 and June 28 of that year.
A set of 3 stamps, namely (170) 4 points "Butterfly Dream", (171) 8 points "Statue of Guan Hanqing" and (172) 20 points "Wangjiang Pavilion". Variety: Rubber carving overprint, perforation: P14, Specification: 27mm×37mm, Number of plates: 80 (10×8), Original painting author: (170) (172) [Ming Dynasty] Huang Yingguang, Huang Yingrui, Huang Dezhen. (171) Li Hu. Designer: Sun Chuanzhe, Engraver: Li Manzeng, Tang Linkun, Gao Zhenyu, Printing House: China Modern Printing Company.
Guan Hanqing was a great dramatist of the Yuan Dynasty in the mainland, and left a wealth of dramatic works in his life, and his main activities in his early years were in the capital of the Yuan Dynasty, and he was a humble petty official. In his later years, he lived in Hangzhou, south of the Yangtze River, and was a professional drama writer. Guan Hanqing not only creates dramas, is proficient in music, is good at singing, and understands stage art, but also can perform on stage himself. In the history of the development of Chinese drama, he is a great realist writer who inherits the past and opens up the future.
The idea of issuing stamps in honor of the great dramatist Guan Hanqing of the Yuan Dynasty was proposed as early as 1955, but it was not implemented for a number of reasons. In 1958, coinciding with the commemoration of world cultural celebrities, on February 3, the Chinese Dramatists Association sent a letter to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, formally proposing the issuance of Guan Hanqing commemorative stamps. On February 6, the party group of the Chinese Association for Foreign Culture officially sent the "Draft Points of the 1958 Plan to Commemorate World Cultural Celebrities" to relevant units, in which it was determined that a set of stamps would be issued as part of the entire commemorative activities. The design and issuance of commemorative stamps with the theme of Kwan Han-hing's theatrical activities was officially launched.
At the beginning of 1958, the party group of the Chinese Association for Foreign Culture had sent the "Draft Key Points of the 1958 Plan to Commemorate World Cultural Celebrities" and other documents to relevant units, so the collection of stamp pattern materials was very smooth, and there was not much trouble in determining the stamp design.
From the documents and letters at that time, it can be seen that the number of stamps issued is a full set of 3, of which the first and third pictures of the stamps choose Guan Hanqing's representative drama "Butterfly Dream" and "Wangjiang Pavilion" as the theme of the pattern, in order to make the pattern more historical, the designer selected two prints from the printmaking illustrations of Guan Hanqing's play Ming Wanli engraving.
The second picture of the stamp is the portrait of Guan Hanqing, in order to accurately and comprehensively reflect the image of Guan Hanqing's drama master on the stamp, the Drama Association and the Artists Association at that time organized a number of famous painters to participate in the creation of the first draft of Guan Hanqing's portrait.
▎▎First Day Cover ▎▎
First Day Cover issued on 20 June 1958, set of 1, set of 3 stamps affixed to the 50th period. Specifications: 190mm×105mm, first day cover, stamp designer: Xia Zhonghan, printing method: lead printing, pricing: 0.36 yuan.
(1) Information related to the postmark of the first day of stamp affixing
Figure 1
Commemorative postmark (red 23×29mm) or date stamp of Shanghai Branch of Philatelic Company (Fig. 1).
(2) The available information does not find that there are multiple layouts and brushes on the front of the first day cover due to different texts.
Figure 2
Figure 3
The front of the "Beijing Stamp" cover (Picture 2) and the "Shanghai Stamp" cover (Picture 3) are in the same layout and color.
The first day cover is printed on the lower left side of the front with the words "Guan Hanqing Drama Creation 700th Anniversary First Day Cover", "Chuang" in traditional Chinese and the words "China Postal Company", both "country" and "post" are in traditional Chinese.
(3) The available information does not find that the first day cover has different stamping sequences and different forms of stamping
(4) The text on the back of the first day cover of the existing information
Figure 4
"Attention" and "First Day Cover Only" are printed on the left side of the cover on the back of the cover with the postmark date (no punctuation) for sale only. (Figure 4).
Figure 5
(1) typetext. The words "Attention" and "First Day Cover Stamp Postmark Date (no punctuation) on the bottom edge of the back cover are printed in dark green (no punctuation) on the same day, postage will be paid after the date of postage (polka dots)" (Picture 5). In addition, the text content of type (1) lacks the restriction on "place of posting".
At present, there is only one type of text on the back of the first day cover, but it is not ruled out that there are other types.
According to the available information, the first day cover of the first day cover of the souvenir sheet of "700 Years of Kwan Hanqing's Drama Creation" was not issued.