2018-05-16 Wed

A military stamp, is a postage stamp used by a military organization, in time of war, or while ensuring a peace keeping operation. In 1953, a set of three stamps, in orange, brownish red and blue were issued.

Among them the Blue Military Stamps were designed and issued to the soldiers who were on active duty so that they can use them to send letters. Patterned with emblem of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the stamp has a face value of 800 old yuan (1 US cent).

However, shortly after the stamp was issued, the authorities realized that these stamps were drawing too much attention. It was becoming easy to recognize a piece of army mail that could have confidential information inside. Moreover, with the paper being slightly transparent there might be a risk of the confidential information being leaked out.

The stamps were immediately recalled and were destroyed. But a small number of them remained with the army. Among the existing copies, the blue ones are the rarest. In 2011, one Blue Military Stamp was auctioned off for 2.7 million yuan (US$428,654) in China.

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