Biography in English

Tung Yuan-feng (1883-4 November 1941) was one of the first serious philatelists of twentiethcentury China. He made technical studies of the Nanking and Foochow neutrality issues of 1912 and of the stamp series depicting Kuomintang martyrs first issued by the National Government in 1932. The Kan-ch'uan district of Kiangsu was the birthplace of Tung Yuan-feng. Born into a family of respectable lineage and comfortable means, he was a nephew of the Ch'ing scholar and official Tung Hsün (ECCP, II, 789-91). His father was interested in local history and was an active proponent of the views of the Ming loyalist Wang Fu-chih (ECCP, II, 817-19), whose patriotic outlook found favor with the anti-Ch'ing movement at the turn of this century.

Tung Yuan-feng received a traditional education in the Chinese classics from tutors. His father died early, and the young Tung took charge of the family's property interests. He also devoted himself to revising his uncle's Kan-fung hsiao-chih (1855), a topographical work on the clan's native town in Kiangsu; to preparing an annotated catalogue of the family library; and to collecting samples of the calligraphy of prominent Kiangsu natives. On a visit to Shanghai in 1908 Tung met Ch'en Chin-t'ao (q.v.), who had been sent abroad by the imperial government to investigate methods for improving the manufacture of Chinese postage stamps. Ch'en had concluded that the techniques used in the United States were least subject to counterfeiting, a highly developed art in China; and he had invited two American experts, William A. Grant and Lorenzo J. Hatch, to China to advise the bureau of printing and engraving at Peking. After meeting in Shanghai with Grant, who had been in charge of the engraving room of the American Bank Note Company, Tung developed an interest in the technical problems involved in the production of bank notes and postage stamps with inscriptions in Chinese characters. During the next decade Tung developed into a serious philatelist and became one of the first Chinese to study Chinese philatelic history, which dates back to 1878. In September 1918 he published notes gleaned from his research on stamp issues of the Chinese treaty ports, notably those of Amoy, Chefoo, Hankow, Ningpo, Swatow, and Weihaiwei. Written in elegant classical Chinese and supplemented with handdrawn reproductions of stamp designs in complete detail, the work was privately printed for circulation among members of the Nan-she, or Southern Society {see Liu Ya-tzu). The small community of Chinese stamp collectors, then clustered in the Shanghai area, recognized it as a work of the first caliber. Tung was one of the first Chinese philatelists to appreciate the significance of watermarks, perforation scales, and varieties of paper and ink in stamp classification. In the 1920's and 1930's, Tung Yuan-feng spent most of his time in Shanghai, then the principal stamp market in China. His precise knowledge of early Chinese issues made him an invaluable consultant, though his personal interests remained more in research than in stamp merchandising. Building on experience gained in his early work on treaty port issues, Tung became a leading authority on the rare provisional neutrality overprint issues of 1912, and his study of the many forgeries of these rare stamps was published in several installments in 1924—25 in the Philatelic Bulletin, issued by the Chinese Philatelic Society of Shanghai. Tung's stamp interests were comprehensive, but he was most interested in aspects of Chinese history and culture that were visually or otherwise documented through postage stamps and postal covers. Utilizing Chinese stamps and stamps used by foreign post offices in China, he sought to record and verify historical events through philatelic evidence, especially by studying dates and places of cancellation. A major interest of Tung's was philatelic portraits, an interest which caused him in 1935 to go to great lengths to obtain a Communist stamp issued several months earlier in the remote Szechwan- Shensi border area {see Chang Kuo-t'ao, Hsu Hsiang-ch'ien) which boasted a picture of Karl Marx. Because possession or circulation of Communist materials was suspect in Nationalist-controlled areas of China, Tung was arrested, and the offending stamp was confiscated by the authorities at Nanking. Released after two weeks because of his impeccable record and lack of genuine evidence of Communist sympathies, Tung Yuan-feng emerged furious at the loss of the stamp which, according to acquaintances in the Shanghai stamp trade, had found its way into the possession of a senior Nationalist official without philatelic sophistication. Tung immediately appealed to a family friend, Chang Jen-chieh (q.v.) ; and Chang, though politically inactive at the time, intervened with Chiang Kai-shek and arranged the return of the offending stamp. Nevertheless, this incident may have played a part in Tung's disillusion with the post- 1928 Kuomintang and his decision to remain in Shanghai after the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937.

Tung's continued residence in Shanghai after 1937 was also motivated by a sense of patriotism and by a desire to prevent Japanese philatelists from acquiring some of China's "national treasures" during a period when many Chinese stamp dealers were forced by financial pressures to sell their collections. During the 1937-41 period, Tung did much preclusive buying in the Shanghai area and acquired many rare or unique items. One of his long-range research interests was the so-called martyrs' issue, which depicted Chinese patriots who had given their lives in the republican revolutionary movement associated with Sun Yat-sen. This group included such figures as Ch'en Ch'i-mei, Chu Chih-hsin, Huang Hsing, Liao Chung-k'ai, Sung Chiao-jen, Teng K'eng (qq.v.), and others. Tung compiled a list of 109 differences in design and printing details between the basic Peking printing (1932) of these stamps and the later (1939-41) Hong Kong printing. He was engaged in expanding this list when he succumbed to pneumonia in Shanghai in late 1941. Just before his death Tung also was engaged in research on overprinted surcharges of the martyrs' issue that appeared in Japanese-controlled areas of China beginning in 1941 . Conservative in instinct, Tung generally eschewed political polemics. One of his last articles, however, boldly suggested that certain contemporary Japanese postage stamps were aesthetically superior to Chinese stamps. Published posthumously in a Chinese weekly in Shanghai early in 1942, the article was later appropriated and reprinted by the Japanese-sponsored government headed by Wang Ching-wei at Nanking in its cultural offensive against the National Government of Chiang Kai-shek at Chungking. In interests and style, Tung Yuan-feng was a man who preserved the Chinese tradition of eccentricity in connoisseurship. Always an enthusiastic amateur, he nevertheless made distinctive contributions to the development of professional standards in twentieth-century Chinese philately. Tung was uninterested in the accoutrements of Western civilization with the exception of the postage stamp, and that only in its Chinese incarnation. At the same time, his detachment from prevailing radical nationalist tendencies in republican Chinese philately led him to study treaty port issues, often denounced by both Nationalist and Communist as bogus relics of Western imperialism in China. After the Second World War, some items in Tung Yuan-feng's philatelic trove were sold privately, with the approval of members of the Tung family, to the prominent British collector Sir Percival David. Chung Hsiao-lu (H. L. Chung), who was the editor of the Chin-tai yu-k'an {Modern Philatelic Monthly) at Shanghai and who was regarded by Western collectors as the dean of Chinese philatelists, reportedly facilitated that transaction. Certain of these items were sold at auction in London in 1964.

Tung Yuan-feng's detailed knowledge of the varieties of Chinese postage stamps of the late imperial and early republican periods assisted the preliminary cataloguing efforts of two fellow philatelists in Shanghai; Ma Zung-sung (Ma Jun-sheng) and his son Ma Ren-chuen (Ma Jen-ch'uan) . Ma Zung-sung died at Chungking in October 1945, but his materials were supplemented and prepared for publication by his son. The resulting bilingual catalogue, published at Shanghai in July 1947, is entitled Mrfs Illustrated Catalogue of the Stamps of China [Ma-shih kuo-yu Vu-chieri). It is generally regarded as the most authoritative pre-Communist catalogue of Chinese postage stamps. Ulanfu Alt. Yun-tse H 5*c

Biography in Chinese

 

董远峰
字:天骥

董远峰(1883—1941.11.4),二十世纪中国第一批著名集邮家之一,他对1912年南京和福州发行的独立纪念邮票和1932年国民政府发行的纪念国民党烈士的一套邮票进行了技术上的研究。

董远峰出生在江苏甘泉县(江都、扬州)的一个富裕的望族,他是清代学者官吏董恂的侄子。他父亲注意地方志,酷信王夫之的学说,王的爱国思想在二十世纪初受到反满运动的重视。

董幼年时受旧式教育,由塾师教读中国典籍。早年父亲去世,他谨守家业,还编订他伯父的那本本地方志《甘棠小志》(1855),汇编家藏图书目录,以及收集江苏书法家的作品。

1908年,董去上海遇见郑振铎,他由清政府派遣出国考察邮票印装事宜。他认为美国在这方面的技术使印制出来的邮票最难伪造,这种伪造技艺在中国却很发达。他并请了两位美国专家:格兰特、赫奇到中国当印铸局顾问。董和
这位美国钞票公司制版师格兰特在上海会见后,就对用中文印制钞票和邮票的工作很感兴趣。

此后十多年中,董成为一个很有成就的集邮家,并且开始研究自1878年以来的中国邮票的历史。1918年9月他出版将自己研究各通商口岸厦门、烟台、汉口、宁波、汕头、威海卫发行的邮票所作的评注加以出版。此书以优美的中
国古文写就并附有手工临摹的邮票详细图样,这是私人印制供南社同仁阅看的。当时齐集上海的一小批集邮者称赞它是第一流作品。董是中国集邮者中对邮票的水印、票孔、纸张、墨样在邮票鉴定中的作用最早加以重视的一人。

二十年代和三十年代期间,董大都住在上海,当时上海是主要的邮票市场。他对早期中国邮票的精湛知识,使他成了集邮事业非常岀色的顾问,虽然他个人对研究邮票比买卖邮票更感兴趣。他早期研究各通商口岸邮票的经验,
使他成为一个研究罕见的1912年各省发行的独立邮票的权威。他鉴别出了不少膺品,并把研究成果在1924—25年上海中国集邮社出版的《集邮会报》上发表。

董对邮票的兴趣是多方面的,他尤其想从邮票及其票面来研究中国的历史和文化。他运用中国邮票以及外国在华发行的邮票,特别是研究其中邮戳的日期和地点来记载和判断历史事件。他对肖像邮票兴趣尤大,1935年他长途跋涉
去觅取几个月前共产党在川陕边区发行的一张邮票,那上面有马克思的肖像。收藏和传送共产党文物在国民党地区是要招致嫌疑的,董因此而被捕,犯禁的邮票也为南京当局所没收。由于他一生无懈可击又查不到他同情共产党的真凭
实据,董在两周后获释,但他从上海邮票商人处得悉,他的邮票却落在一个素无集邮爱好的国民党大官手中,董对此大为愤怒,他诉诸世交张人杰,张当时虽不再从政,却向蒋介石提出此事并设法追回了这张犯禁的邮票。这件事,可
能使董对1928年以后的国民党深感失望,并在1937年中日战争爆发后仍然决定留在上海。

董留居上海,也出于一种爱国之心,他想要避免中国某些“国宝"落入日本集邮者之手,那时有不少邮票商因经济困难,被迫出售所藏邮票。1937—41年间,董在上海先发制人,购进了不少稀有的以至独一无二的珍品。他长期研
究孙逸仙从事民国革命时期烈士的邮票,其中有如陈其美、朱执信、黄兴、廖仲恺、宋教仁、邓铿等人的肖像邮票。他按照图样设计和印刷的不同,将1932年在北京发行和1939—41年在香港发行的这类邮票编集了一百〇九种式样。19
41年他身患肺炎,仍继续收集这类邮票。他死前不久,还在继续研究1941年起在日占区出现的盖有改值印记的烈士邮票。董生性保守,因此竭力避免政治纷争。但是,他在最后所写的文章中却说近来日本的某些邮票从美学角度来看,
远比中国邮票为优,这篇文章在他死后于1942年初在上海的一家周刊上发表,其后为南京汪伪政府所赏识并予转载,作为对重庆蒋介石的国民政府进行文化进攻的一个材料。

就兴趣和风格而言,董远峰有中国旧式鉴赏家的怪癖,他作为一个热情的业余爱好者,却对二十世纪中国邮票事业专业水平的提高作出了重大贡献。除邮票以外,他对西方的文化成就不感什么兴趣,而且对邮票也只限于外国在中
国印行的邮票。与此同时,他对民国时期流行的激进的民族主义倾向所抱的疏远态度促使他去研究早期通商口岸的邮票,这些邮票国民党和共产党双方都斥之为西方帝国主义在中国的假文物。第二次世界大战后,他收藏的某些邮票,
得到他家属的同意,私下卖给了英国集邮家大卫爵士,据说钟晓鹿(译音)促成了这笔交易,钟是上海《近代邮刊》的编辑,被西方集邮人称之为中国集邮界领袖。董的有些邮票,1964年在伦敦被拍卖。

董远峰关于清末民初各式各样邮票的详尽知识,使他的两个上海集邮同仁马润生与其子马任全便于编订有关资料的目录。马润生于1945年10月死在重庆,他的遗稿由其子补充修订于1947年7月在上海出版,题为《马氏国邮图
鉴》,这是中外文对照的书,被公认为是1949年以前最有权威的有关中国邮票的目录书。

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