The prosperous era of courtyard houses

Chapter 47, Stamps

Li Weiguo was very happy after receiving this pile of letters. There were almost more than a hundred letters, and he immediately read them enthusiastically.

Zhou Bo on the side saw Li Weiguo fussing with old envelopes, so he came over and said, "Brother Wei Guo, do you like this? We have too many old envelopes and stamps in our compound, and the used ones are not worth anything. I’ll get you some if you want.”

Li Weiguo asked doubtfully: "Can you really get it?"

Zhou Bo nodded and said: "Really, can our post office compound be without old stamps? I usually play casually."

Also, why is the post office lacking these? These half-grown children don’t even know how much they make.

After thinking for a while, Li Weiguo immediately said to Zhou Bo: "Well, you will help me collect these old stamps, and I will exchange them for candies. Ten old envelopes with stamps will be exchanged for one candy. You can exchange as many as you have. That's it. How about I give you a pound of fruit candy?"

There are about 100 hard candies per catty, and one candy costs about two cents. The actual face value of many stamps is only two cents. One candy can be exchanged for 10 old stamps. This price is not low, and it is the conscience of the industry.

"Really, okay, I'll go tell them and come back later."

Zhou Bo became energetic and immediately ran out to find someone.

Even if Zhou Bo's family was well off, Uncle Zhou and Aunt Zhou would not buy him so much candy. No child could resist the temptation of a pound of candy.

Zhou Can just wanted to stop Zhou Bo but he ran away. He couldn't help complaining: "If you want it, why don't I ask Xiaobo to get some for you? Why are you giving him something? He's so unreasonable."

"What a big deal, just take it as a reward and leave it alone." Li Weiguo waved his hand.

About ten minutes passed.

Zhou Bo hurriedly ran back and called Li Weiguo: "Brother Weiguo. Everyone has been notified. Come with me quickly. They have already gone home to get the old envelopes."

"Okay, let's go." Li Weiguo followed him immediately.

After going downstairs, in the courtyard downstairs, a dozen children were already waiting there.

As soon as the people arrived, Zhou Bo said to them: "This is my brother Wei Guo. He likes old stamps. If you have any, go back and exchange them for candy. I have already brought the people. I didn't lie to you."

One of the children, who was about the same age as Zhou Bo, asked Li Weiguo: "Is it really ten old envelopes with stamps in exchange for one candy?"

Li Weiguo nodded and said: "Well, you just go back and look for it. I will buy you some candies now. Exchange as much as you have."

"Okay, let's go back and find it for you."

The children immediately asked their friends to go home and look for things. After a while, more than a dozen children ran home.

After all the boys ran home, Li Weiguo asked Zhou Bo to stay and help collect tickets, while he got on his bike and went to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy candies.

Ten minutes later, I rode back with three kilograms of fruit candies in my hand.

At this moment, the children are already waiting in the yard.

Li Weiguo carried the candies to the stone table in the yard, put the candies on the table, unwrapped them for everyone to see, and asked them to change them one by one.

"I'll come first, I'll come first."

The kid who was about the same age as Zhou Bo came over first to change.

He took out a large pile of old envelopes from his pocket, all with stamps.

Li Weiguo took it and checked it carefully to see if it was old.

It would be funny if it was new and someone didn't have time to send it out.

There are postmarks on the stamps, confirming that they are used, and there are almost hundreds of them.

Li Weiguo also found a large dragon wide-bordered yellow 5-cent silver stamp inside.

Among China's rare stamps, the first one is the Dalong wide-border yellow 5-cent silver. It is a treasure among the Dalong stamps issued for the first time in China.

In 1878 (the fourth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu), the Qing government launched a trial postal service at the customs.

The first set of stamps was issued, a complete set of 3 stamps, with face values ​​calculated in silver taels: 1 cent of silver (green), 3 cents of silver (red), and 5 cents of silver (orange).

The stamp pattern is a dragon, lined with clouds and water waves, commonly known as "dragon stamps".

Dalong stamps have been issued three times, first issued in August 3. The paper is made of rigid translucent tissue paper. The distance between the two stamps is 1878 mm. There are 8 stamps in the whole sheet. It is commonly known as "Tissue Paper Dalong".

The second issue was in April 1882. The spacing between the sub-molds was widened, and it was commonly known as the "wide-sided dragon";

The third edition was issued in April 1883. The paper was thicker and was commonly known as the "Thick Paper Dragon".

When the "Broad-Bordered Dragon" stamps were issued for the second time in 1882, there was a surge in mail and a large amount of stamps were used.

When printing the 5-cent silver stamps, we could not find suitable paper for a while, so we used thin and brittle paper produced in France. There were only 2 stamps printed, and most of them were used. Only new stamps remained for later generations. More than a hundred pieces have become treasures in Chinese mail.

In 91, a complete set of 25 pieces was auctioned for a high price of 37.4 pounds.

Others such as: commemorative tickets for the China/Country/people/official/shoe/business/meeting, Sino-Soviet/friendly/good/alliance/mutual/assistance/treaty signing commemorative tickets, the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China There are many types of National Congress stamps and commemorative stamps commemorating the 90th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.

Many of them were stamps that Li Weiguo had never seen or heard of.

There are some from after the founding of the People's Republic of China, some from the Republic of China, and even some from the Qing Dynasty. This trip is really worth it.

No problem, change it quickly.

Zhou Bo helped count the number of each person, while Li Weiguo handed out candies beside him.

It took almost half an hour to finish the exchange. Each of the more than a dozen children brought forty or fifty envelopes. In this trip, almost a thousand old envelopes were exchanged, filling a sack.

Li Weiguo picked out several envelopes with rare stamps, such as Dalong stamps, Blue Army stamps, "military/people stickers" stamps, Tian/an/men shine stamps, BJ's new sailing ship 4 points "tentatively 3 points" "Inverted stamps, original stamps with red stamps, stamped with Chinese/Chinese/Republic of/National/Provisional/Provisional/China/Independence stamps, etc.

These are stamps that are relatively expensive to collect for later generations.

I picked it out for the time being and went back to Zhou Can to ask if anyone had new tickets in their collection and would find a way to exchange them when the time came.

After the candies were distributed, there was still about a catty and a half of fruit candy in the bag, and Zhou Bo looked at him eagerly.

Seeing his appearance, Li Weiguo burst into laughter and refused to let him go. He pushed the remaining candies to him: "These are all given to you as a reward. If someone wants to change later, you can collect them for me first." , when the time comes, you can bring it to my house and I’ll settle the bill for you, okay?”

After taking the remaining candies, Zhou Bole was happy. How could he disagree? He quickly nodded in agreement.

After exchanging stamps, I returned to Zhou Can's house. Aunt Zhou was almost ready to cook.

Zhou Can asked: "You are finally back. If you don't come back, I will go down to find you. How was the harvest?"

Li Weiguo smiled and said: "It's not bad, I received more than a thousand letters."

"I'm really impressed with you. What's so good about the old ones? If you want new ones, I can find some for you. Every household in the yard keeps some new stamps." Zhou Can said helplessly.

"Then help me see if there is any way to get new stamps for these stamps. If so, I will pay them at a high price. This is my hobby." As he spoke, Li Weiguo took out the carefully selected envelopes from his satchel and gave them to him. Zhou Can looks.

Zhou Can took the envelopes, looked at the stamps on them, thought about it in his mind, and said, "We should be able to get it. There is an old man in our courtyard who was already a postman during the Republic of China. He has a lot of stock there, and other stores also have some. It’s the weekend today, so I’ll ask you about it after dinner later.”

Li Weiguo was immediately overjoyed: "Okay, thank you. Take it back and I'll ask you to boil the mutton. It's enough!"

"Is the hotpot mutton enough? Are you serious?"

Zhao Guobing got excited when he heard that there was boiled mutton to eat, and he stretched his head from one side and said: "Our Grain Station Family House also has a lot of stamps. Every year, various units will send some various coupons to the grain station employees. It’s quite a lot, if you want it I’ll collect it for you.”

"Okay, you can collect them for me. Just those stamps just now, as many as you want. It's okay to collect them at three to five times the face value, or you can exchange them for food stamps."

Li Weiguo immediately agreed. It might be a bit sensitive to charge three to five times the price, but exchanging food stamps would definitely work. Who dares to say that his family is not short of food.

Zhou Can said confidently: "Okay, we're sure to eat your mutton meal, you wait until you bleed. If you dare to control enough, I'm afraid I don't know the fighting power of your Brother Can and Brother Bing, hahaha..."

Zhao Guobing was also making noises on the side, preparing to kill Li Weiguo with a knife.

Looking at the fussy Zhou Can and Zhao Guobing, Li Weiguo smiled and said nothing. You may make a profit, but I will never lose, hehe.

Sensitive words were blocked for a day yesterday and were released this morning. It’s embarrassing to have to bother the editor all the time, so some words and sentences have to be separated by symbols to avoid being caught all the time. If it affects the reading experience, there’s nothing you can do about it. Please forgive me.