Every stamp tells a story, and the plot thickens when you can't read the text on the stamps because you don't know the writing. These two SOS (the red and green one) were issued by The Republic of China (ROC) one year before what we know today as The People's Republic of China (PRC) was established on the mainland in 1949. The old republic government continued on Taiwan. The main banner says:
Youzheng zongju chengli wushi zhounian jinian. This means "post authority commemoration day stamp exhibition". The boat-and-plane stamp is from a set issued only one year before (1947), and the other one is a portrait of Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), the republic's first president and "father of the nation", issued in 1912. More details about this commemoratives can be found in the ROC section on Rammy Molcho's wonderful website
Stamps on Stamps Virtual Collection.
Bonus: #776
As a bonus I'm including another one that belongs to the same 1947 set that the boat-and-plane stamp came from. An excellent line engraving depicting some of the main means of transport needed to conevy mail across the vast territory of mainland China, which is delineated with borders on the map in the middle. The text indicates: In commemoration of 50 years of the Postal Directorate. It doesn't mean that the first Chinese stamps were issued as late as 1896 (under the Qing dynasty). Local area stamps were used long before that. But internal administrative changes in the Chinese postal system in the 1890s is perhaps not as interesting as dwelling on the beauty of the stamps themselves? I really like these line engravings.
(Thanks to Otto Malmgren for the Chinese translations.)
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