Manchurian Local Overprints (MLO's) 1946 to 1947

Fengtian Postal District (Mukden Type) Overprints

These are Mukden (Moukden) type overprints. All are very similar and have the same four characters 中華 China, 暫用Temporary Use and almost all of these overprints are in black.

On 8th August 1945 Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded the state of Manchukuo. The state was quickly over-run by Russian, Nationalist Chinese and Communist Chinese Troops and a great amount of chaos ensued until the Communists gained full control in 1947.

From the start of hostilities in 1945 until the decisive victory by the Communists in 1947 special measures had to be taken (often at a local level) by postmasters, to ensure the continuation of postal services and to provide revenue to pay themselves and their staff. The only stock of stamps available were those provided by their former employers, the Government of Manchukuo. Postmasters made "Chops" out of various materials and overprinted the stamps they had. These chops usually read "Chinese Republic, Temporary Use" or similar. The stamps of Manchukuo were also overprinted for use in the Kwantung Leased Territory, which included Dairen and Port Arthur.

It was not just the existing GPO that produced these chops, because there were so many designs it was easy for stamp dealers to produce spurious overprints for sale to philatelists, so much so that almost a third of all the overprints listed fall into this category. Some of the chops refer to towns and villages that cannot be traced. Forgeries are still being made today and to avoid these new fakes buy from old collections where possible.

The change of regime also brought about a change in currency, and from 15th January 1946 the Manchukuo Yuan was replaced by the North-Eastern Yuan (a special currency issued by the Central Bank of China for use in the North East). The exchange rate was 1 Manchukuo Yuan to 20 North-Eastern Yuan. In 1948 this was replaced with the Gold Yuan at a rate of 150,000 North-Eastern Yuan to 1 Gold Yuan.

When the change in currency took place the domestic letter rate was 10 Manchukuo fen, after 15th January 1946 this changed to 1 North-Eastern Yuan, essentially half the rate.  This currency change is likely to be the reason for the many surcharged issues and would logically indicate that surcharged stamps date from after January 1946, this might or might not be the case.