The Large Dragon Postage Stamps
of the Shanghai Local Post Office,
a Catalog of the 1865 Provisional Issues

by Richard Frajola and Sydney Cline

      Table of Contents

Preface. The intent of this presentation is to make available to a wider audience the information and images needed to correctly identify the 78+ printings of the Large Dragon Provisionals of the Shanghai Local Post Office in 1865. The printings have been identified, previously by Dr. Chow (a link to a pdf file of his book is included below) and more recently Mr. Fortune Wang has made additions (see Volume I of the four volume set based on his fantastic collection on the Shanghai Local Post). Unfortunately, these important works that are not readily available. Hopefully this presentation will encourage a wider audience to enjoy the challenges of the issues. I would like to thank Wolfgang Balzer for his assistance for providing important insights as well as several images.

An important source for an an overview of The Shanghai Local Post that may not be familiar to philatelic audiences is a lengthy article by Lane J. Harris that appeared in 2018 in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History; "Stumbling towards Empire: The Shanghai Local Post Office, the Transnational British Community and Informal Empire in China, 1863-97."

Introduction. Historical perspective and map of characters (pdf file)

Chapter One. Stamp listings by group order, termed "batches" (pdf file)

Chapter Two. Print characteristics by denomination (pdf file)

Chapter Three. Valuations for all of the prints (pdf file)

Chapter Four. Postal History (summary with new discoveries)(pdf file)

Appendix One. Images of printings, arranged by denomination (pdf file)

Appendix Two. Images of printings, in batches by print order (pdf file)

Appendix Three. Forgeries, Frajola mounted group, 28 pages (pdf file)

Complete in Single PDF File. With all content linked above (pdf file)

Extra Website Only Content:

Shanghai Large Dragons, by Dr. Wei-Liang Chow, Complete book (pdf file)

Richard Frajola Collection 2021 version (pdf file)

Richard Frajola (June 7, 2023)