When it comes to stamp collecting, Li Chu has never had this hobby in either of his lives.
I don't know which stamps will be valuable in the future, or which ones won't sell.
However, he knew one thing: the 1980 Year of the Monkey stamp would be valuable.
As for why it was a monkey stamp instead of a rooster stamp from 1981, he couldn't figure it out.
He wasn't interested either. He figured he could sell just one of the few porcelain pieces he had at home and it would be worth a lot of stamps, so he never even considered stamp collecting.
I was a bit stumped when someone asked me that question today.
“I don’t collect stamps and I don’t know anything about stamps, but I remember there are people collecting them outside your post office. Why don’t you go there to sell them and come here instead? These foreigners probably aren’t interested in our country’s stamps.”
"Oh dear, Dr. Li, you don't know this, but the people buying them outside the post office are driving the prices down so low that I thought I'd come here to try my luck and see if there were any foreigners who would like them. I've been here for days, and I haven't been able to sell any at all."
Those really won't sell. If you're selling small domestic handicrafts or antiques, and they're not too expensive, foreigners might be interested. Stamps... well, let's just say they're not.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wang, I really have no interest in collecting stamps or anything like that, and most importantly, I don't know anything about them."
"It's alright, it's alright. I was being presumptuous. I won't bother you any longer, Dr. Li."
Wang Chong'an didn't press the matter further. Upon hearing that he wasn't interested, he immediately took his leave, which surprised Li Chu. Some people are like leeches, sticking to you and impossible to shake off.
Seeing his slightly forlorn figure, Li Chu stood there frowning and thought for a moment before calling out to him.
"Master Wang, please wait a moment."
"ah?"
"Could you let me see your stamps?"
Wang Chong'an walked back, somewhat bewildered: "Dr. Li, what's wrong...?"
"Oh, I'd like to see your stamps. I really don't know anything about them, so I'd like to admire them first."
"Okay, um... let's go under the eaves over there. It's snowing, and it's not good for the stamps to get wet."
At that time, there were no stamp albums, so Wang Chong'an kept his stamps in several magazines, but he kept them very neat. He was afraid that the ink from the magazines would transfer to the stamps over time, so he also put white paper in them.
After all, he worked at the post office, so he had a wide variety of stamp designs, including the 1980 Year of the Monkey stamp.
This is the only one that Li Chu recognizes. Oh wait, there's another one he recognizes too. His older generation saw it online, and it's supposedly quite valuable. It's called something like "A Piece of Red".
The rest of the time, he just looked at the dolls. There were even some issued during the Qing Dynasty, and some from the early days of the People's Republic of China. The denominations were shockingly large, such as 10,000, 20,000, 40,000, etc. Tsk tsk!
Some of them looked like they were peeled off envelopes, and they even had postmarks on them, but they were all handled very well; it was clear that they had put a lot of effort into them.
Wang Chong'an had managed to turn seven or eight thin magazines into something as thick as a dictionary, containing nearly two hundred pages of various sizes. Nobody knows how he managed to collect them all.
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"Master Wang, I can tell you really enjoy stamp collecting. Why are you selling them all of a sudden?"
"Sigh, there's nothing I can do. My grandson is getting married. Forget about the TV and stuff, I need to prepare the furniture for the house, find a way to get a bicycle, and prepare some dowry for the bride's family."
My eldest grandson got married last year, and my second grandson just had his wedding this summer. The youngest and the old are practically settled on their wedding plans, and they're planning to hold their own weddings next spring. We just can't afford it anymore, so we had no choice but to think of using these stamps I collected.”
Look at this, there are so many children in the family, and if each one has to step on the other's shoulders to get things done, then it's one thing after another.
He's paid for the weddings of three grandsons in the last three years. As the grandfather, he can't just give money to the eldest and second eldest and then not to the third; otherwise, the family would be in an uproar.
There was no other way; he had to grit his teeth and come up with a sum of money.
It looks like he's thrown away his life savings, otherwise he wouldn't have put his hobbies into the money.
Fortunately, he still has a retirement pension; otherwise, his retirement would be a problem. Should he rely on his children? It's more reliable to rely on himself.
Li Chu looked down at the magazines, hesitated for a moment, and asked, "Master Wang, how much are you planning to sell them for?"
Upon hearing this, Wang Chong'an's eyes lit up.
I've been running around for several days now, and it's not that no one has offered me a price; the highest offer I've received is seventy yuan, all of it.
He didn't sell it; he felt that all the effort he had put in over the years was worth more than that price.
"Dr. Li, would you like all of them, or just a few?"
“If I wanted them, I would definitely take them all. I don’t know the difference between good and bad stamps. You must have put a lot of effort into collecting so many. I’ll buy them to enjoy myself and learn from them. I saw that many of the stamps even have some words of explanation on them.”
Upon hearing him say he wanted them all, Wang Chong'an lowered his head and pondered for a moment before saying, "Dr. Li, if you intend to take them all, it will cost three hundred yuan."
Is it expensive? Yes, it is expensive! There are less than two hundred stamps in total, which works out to more than one yuan per stamp. Where can you find stamps at this price now? Stamps with a face value of fifty cents are extremely rare; most are five or ten cents.
Li Chu smacked his lips and put the magazines he was holding back into the cloth bag.
"Master Wang, to be honest, I don't know much about stamp prices, but I think they're too expensive. Maybe they're valuable, but they're not worth that much to me."
"Dr. Li, if you think it's too expensive, please name a price." Wang Chong'an was getting anxious. He had finally found a glimmer of hope, and he didn't want to ruin it.
"Okay, I won't talk about tens or hundreds of stamps. Let's count how many stamps there are in total. Unposted ones are one yuan each, and posted ones are ten cents each. Even if I don't know much about stamps, I know that a postmark means it has been used. These things probably don't have much collectible value, they're just for looking at them."
"Dr. Li, I have several of these in my collection that are from the previous dynasty, and they are in very good condition."
“I know, that’s why I evened it out and gave you a one-dollar bill. Otherwise, you wouldn’t think that a bill that’s only been around for the last two years is worth one dollar, would you?”
"Uh..." This left Wang Chong'an speechless. There were indeed some from the last year or two in there, and he could probably still exchange them at the post office now, and at face value.
Looking at the cloth bag that was now back in his hands, and touching the magazines, Wang Chong'an hesitated.
He worked at the post office his whole life, even before the liberation. He really liked these stamps, and he would never have taken them out to exchange for money if it weren't for his grandson's wedding.
But the facts are there for all to see: Li Chu offered him the highest price he'd received in the past few days, and he gritted his teeth and nodded.
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