Foreword Customs of China and De La Rue of England in 1877
As the first set of stamps issued by the Chinese Customs, the Large Dragon stamps draw great attention for their distinguished historical status. The background and dates of their issuance have been widely discussed among scholars. Moreover, due to the repeat-ed printings of the Large Dragons, the plate settings that resulted are complex. Covers bearing the Large Dragons are scarce and are invaluable to Chinese philately, in addition to their long being objects of pleasure, appreciation and satisfaction to collectors of classic stamps.
In 1925, M. D. Chow presented an article in Philatelic Bulletin, which was an exploratory study on subjects such as the design, denominations, printed colors, issuance quantities and plate settings of the Large Dragons. In the 1940s, T. C. Chen, Sun Junyi, etc. successively published papers for carrying out further discussion on the Large Dragons in Cathay Philatelic Journal, Chinese Philatelic Classics, New Light Philatelic Magazine and Philatelic Friends. Sir Percival David authored the paper Sketches, Essays and Proofs of China's First Issue in the March 1949 The London Philatelist (Volume 58, No. 676). His article introduced the Large Dragons' related drawings, design essays, as well as proofs and specimens for the master dies and clichés. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the issuance of Large Dragon Stamps in 1978, Philip Willard Ireland released his renowned monograph, CHINA——The Large Dragons 18781885, which comprehensively and systematically covered the background and course of issuance, along with the clichés and plate settings of the stamps.
In 1980, Sun Zhiping's presentation My Opinion on the Issuance Date of the Large Dragons in Philately (Issue 3) sparked widespread and enthusiastic response from scholars. Quite a few Chinese philatelists and researchers on the Chinese Customs history published papers subsequently putting forth their opinions. This further opened up a large-scale nationwide philatelic discussion, focusing on the issuance date and background of the Large Dragons, which lasted for five long years. As a result, the consensus that emerged gradually cleared up the confusion surrounding the issuance date of the Large Drag-ons. The proposition of the stamps being issued in July of 1878 was subsequently confirmed with the aid of credible primary sources, which was the most important contribution from the Chinese phila-telic community after the founding of the People's Republic.
Both the Selected Archives of Tientsin Customs Post in Late Qing Dynasty, co-edited by the Tianjin Archives and China Philatelic Press in 1988, and Archives of China's Imperial Maritime Customs: Confidential Correspondence between Robert Hart and James Duncan Campbell, 1874-1907, Volumes I - IV, jointly compiled by the Second Historical Archives of China and Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences between 1990 and 1993, with Chen Xiafei and Han Rongfang as the chief editors, furnished philatelists with important first-hand historical records on the background of the issuance of the Large Dragons. James B. Whang of Taiwan's Whang's Illustrated Collection of the Large Dragons, 18781885 and A Comprehensive Illustration on Covers of Chinese Large Dragons were pub-lished in 1993 and 1997, respectively, and have been the important references for collecting and researching the Large Dragons.
Since the 1878 release of the Large Dragon issue, many phi-latelists, at home and abroad, have been devoting lifelong efforts to studying and collecting the issue. Among the more prominent repre-sentative figures are John A. Agnew, Sir Percival David, Major James Starr, Dr. Warren G. Kauder, G. Gilbert, Philip W. Ireland, Paul P. Hock, Meiso Mizuhara, Anna-Lisa and Sven-Eric Beckeman, Jane and Dan Sten Olsson, M. D. Chow, Allen Gokson, C. Chen, James Huangco, James B. Whang, L. Y. Woo, Lam Man Yin, Lee King Yue, etc. G. Gilbert, Robert C. H. Lee, C. Chen, Paul P. Hock and the Beckemans in turn worked to identify the characteristic features for each plate setting based on existing material.
Tremendous research has been carried out on the Large Dragon issue for the past one hundred years, leading to numerous publi-cations. The results were fruitful, and some of them were simply brilliant. Nonetheless, there are still a few mysteries waiting to be solved, especially those concerning the preparation and production of the issue during the period between 1876 and 1878. Due to the lack of related documents, there still exist some missing links, academically speaking, and cognitive ambiguities. In fact, no really significant records had been unearthed for the past two decades, so that the academic community has been unable to make substantial research breakthroughs on the Large Dragons.
I took a special trip to London in late October 2017 in connec-tion with my essay in Commemoration of the 140th Anniversary of the Issuance of the Large Dragon Stamps, part of the celebration program for the issue held this year co-hosted by the China National Postage Stamp Museum and China Customs Museum. I went through places like the British Library, the National Postal Museum, the University of Reading Library and the Museum of Philatelic History at the Royal Philatelic Society London, searching for evidence and records in piles and piles of literature that might be related in the slightest degree to the stamp production by the Chinese Imperial Customs 140 years ago. After almost relentless ef-forts, I was able to discover quite a number of important documents, including the Thomas De La Rue & Co.'s China Archives of 1877, which ultimately led to the publication of this book.