The fourth series of overprints served a very similar purpose to the third issue. It was basically a method to collect money from the population in general and stamp collectors specifically. Except, this time the collection method did not take the route via very high nominal amounts but by the use of donations for various national causes (People’s livelihood, National Defense, War Wounded, Child Welfare, Campaign Against Illiteracy and New Life Movement). The Vietnamese Postage Stamp Catalogue calls the surcharges “extra tax for national salvation”. So, the original nominal of the stamps was not changed, but the the sales price was simply increased by the amount of donation printed on the stamps. A total of eight values were overprinted in this way. Note that the 2D value shows the overprint error “broken T in VIET and broken G in CONG”.
Poverty reigned supreme among the population right after World War II and the famines caused by severe flooding in 1945, so very few people could afford to buy these stamps let alone use them for postal communications. In over 25 years of collecting Vietnamese
Please note that the second stamp from the left is the rare VM Michel Nr. 49A which is perforated 11.5-12. Apart from the one contained in the booklet mentioned under the 2nd and 3rd overprint series above, the editor has never seen a complete used set for sale. Here is the page in the booklet with the rare VM Michel Nr. 53.
Michel virtually does not distinguish mint and used pricing and based on long term market observation this makes no sense. Used sets should be valued at a large multiple of the mint prices.
An overprint error is known for VM Michel Nr. 48 and 49. On the bottom left stamps of each issue the period after “d” is missing.
Here is another reoccurring plate door of the overprint. On the top right stamp the dash between “Viet” and “Nam” is shortened to a dot.
It appears that not many complete sheet of the surcharge issue have survived over the years. Again, this probably has to do with the fairly high cost to acquire complete sheets. All the editor could find so far are two sheet of the rare VM Michel Nr. 50 (6C = 2 Dong) and VM Michel Nr. 53 (6c + 4 Dong carmine):
There are a number of plate errors in the overprint cliche as follows:
The stamps in Field A1, C5, C7 and D6 show the error “broken G in CONG”.
The stamp in position A4 shows the error “fat E in VIET and colon between Bao and Anh mostly missing:
The stamps in fields B4, B5, B6, B8, C4, C7, C8, D1, D4, D5, E5 and E7 show the plate error of “hyphen between Bao and Anh mostly missing”. The stamp in position B4 also shows the error “G in Dong damaged at bottom”.
The stamp in field C5 also shows the error “broken O in HOA”:
The stamp in position D1 shows the errors “broken n in ANH and broken d in DONG”:
The stamp in field D8, D9 and D10 show the error “broken g in Dong”:
The stamp in field D9 also shows the error “broken A in ANH”:
The stamp in position E2 shows the error “broken o in BAO:
The stamp in field E3 shows the error “short n in ANH”:
The stamp in position D8 shows the error “broken h in ANH”:
on this sheet there are a number of overprint errors. On field A3 one can find the error A in VIET-NAM broken”.
on field B3, E2 and G2 one can find the error “O in CONG open at bottom”.
on field C3 one can find the error “G in CONG looks like a 6”.
On field D1 one can find the error “V in VIET-NAM damaged at top”.
on field I9 one can find the error “u in mu damaged and O in CONG open on top”.
on field B2 one can find the errors “n in nan and u in mu damaged”.
on field F3 one can find the error “u in mu looks like an i”.
on field J1 one can find the errors ” black dot inside C of Chiang and u in chu solid”.
Registration Nr. 100007
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