Some stuff and questions. Hey laurentyvan, get in here and read the French!

historygeek

Can anyone read the date on the postmark, or the handwriting?




What does this coin grade?

tbirde56

Stalin and Churchill on an old Chinese post card. Interesting!
I'd give the Tibet 3 Srang at least an AU IMHO. Is that year 16-9 (1935)? Tibetan dating is a bear!

Askari

I can't really make out the date although there seems to be a '7' to the left, a '4' or '14' in the middle, and what looks like '116' on the right (maybe '46'?). The handwriting looks like it may be French. In handwriting back then, it was common to put a curl above a 'u' to distinguish it from cursive 'm' & 'n' (at least in Germany and France). The last word on the top line looks like "oui".

sumnom

This is tough.

Given that the postmark is from "Beijing" and is from the Republican period, we can narrow this down to the 1912 to 1928 period because from 1928 to 1949 the official name for Beijing was "Beiping." (Now maybe they just used the same postmarks, I don't know.) I also think that the date will not be according Anno Domini but according to the year of the republic. Thus it will somewhere from year 1 to year 17. The date might also be in the YY-MM-DD format.

So, here is my guess:

17 11 4 116

Which might be November 4, 1928 (year 17) with some sort of postal code of 116.

HG, do you have examples of other ROC postmarks from this period for comparison?

mrdq

I speak french but i can't read that writing if it even is french.. if it was english i doubt i'd be able to decipher that scrawl

laurentyvan

Here and there a syllable looks familiar, but after much inspection I could not swear that it's french. The cursive of the day would have been much more stylized and I think familiar to me. Probably a male handwriting specimen though...

Sorry, I spent a while trying to decipher it...

CIVITAS

As best as I can tell from the Scott's catalogue, the Dr. Sun Yat-sen stamp type was not introduced until 1931, so I don't think 1928 will work for this one. Granted this is a postcard, but the pre-posted cards usually follow the stamp type. I don't have a catalogue specialized enough to determine the issue date for that postcard, but I'm guessing it's after 1931.

laurentyvan

I've looked at it again-perhaps it is French- the second and third words could be 'jus'qua present' which would mean 'up until now, or, 'up to the present time'.

Askari

It sort of looked like "jus'qua" to me too, but it's hard to say. The scribbling you think may be "present" looks more to me like "vraiment." I know too little French, but would "... jus'qua vraiment oui" mean anything?

BTW, on postage meters, you have to be careful of vertical lines. These aren't always part of a number but the edge of plate in the stamp that separates the different parts of what is being stamped (like day / month / year). The numbers or letters are on a metal or rubber wheel that allows you to change the date daily. Even today I get letters from countries where they still use handstamps that show these extraneous marks.

CIVITAS

The second to last work looks like "farting."

Does that help?

laurentyvan

but would "... jus'qua vraiment oui" mean anything? No, not in my lexicon...


Present, with the top P loop unclosed has a tendency to look like a V (I guess)
'jus'qua present oui' does mean something however: up until now, yes.

Hey it can become a mystery phrase-to join the Darkside, successfully decipher this!

Now Civitas, about this "farting" problem you have...

sumnom

I was thinking about the issues you mentioned, Askari, but in comparing the vertical lines on both of the postmarks, it looked to me as if there was a bit of a barb near the top that one might expect to find on the top of a 1. Well, it was just a guess anyway.

sumnom

Civitas, your claim for 1931 or later is convincing but then we would have to find something like that in the postmark. 1931 would be the year 20. Of course I am assuming that the would have been using the year of he republic rather than AD. It would be nice to see some clearer postmarks for comparison.