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1946 Unit stamps of Jin-Sui (Shanxi-Suiyuan) Base area

In 1946, unit stamps were issued in the Shanxi-Suiyuan (Jin-Sui) Base Area. They were:

Local Postage - green

Printed Matter up to 100g - blue

Printed Matter up to 500g - dull violet

Registered - light orange

Double registered - red

The designs were of characters describing the usage on a wavy background. They are all rare.

Below are two copies of the green local stamp, both used, sold in recent Christoph Gärtner auctions; auction 43, lot 5055 and auction 45, lot 5528, respectively:

The stamp on the right is dated, 九日 四月 卅五年, 9 day 4 month 35 year, or 9th April 1946. This is the earliest known use of any of the Shanxi-Suiyuan unit stamps.

The circular date stamps (c.d.s.) are both of Xingxian 興縣, Shanxi 山西, the first with solid circle and no date visible, the second is an almost complete c.d.s. in a dotted circle.

Xingxian 興縣 (modern simplified 兴县) or Xing County, is now in the jurisdiction of Luliang City, in the west of Shanxi Province. It lies on the Weifen River, which flows into the Yellow River about 20km to the west. Here the Yellow River forms the boundary between Shanxi and Shaanxi.

During the war with Japan, and the civil war afterwards, the town was a stronghold of the 120th division of the Eighth Route Army led by He Long. From here the 120th division guarded the northern approaches to the communist headquarters in Yanan.

Today the Jinsui Border Revolution Museum is located in the village of Caijiayaxiang, just outside of the town of Xingxian.

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