Unified Vietnam, 5. Anniversary of the Chinese-Vietnamese War 1979, Michel unlisted; From February 17th, 1979 through March 16th, 1979 China and Vietnam fought a brief war that was grounded in historical border disputes of the Chinese-Vietnamese Northern border and the fact that the Vietnamese Government was fighting a land war against the Khmer Rouge In Cambodia, which was an ally of China. China occupied a few Vietnamese border cities but withdrew its troops after a few weeks without reaching its objective (Wikipedia).

Four imperforate stamps in nominals of 1D, 1.50D, 2D and 4D have recently appeared in the market (2020) that purport to have been prepared to commenmorate the 5th Anniversary of the short war. It is unclear if the design was actually solicited by the Vietnamese postal authorities from a private stamp designers and then in the end simply not pursued or if the creation of these stamps was simply a private nationalistic initiative that was intended to placate the Vietnamese military. Given that these stamps are only offered “once in a blue moon” it is unlikely that the creation of these stamps represents a private initiative intended to defraud collectors. Had they been made to separate collectors from their hard earned Dollars we would simply see them more often in the market.

The stamps depict basic military scenes with the exception of the 4D value, which appears to depict the hindering of a land grab. Here the strong red arm of Vietnam is trying to hinder a Chinese wearing Mao hat with a red five pronged star to grab at Vietnams land mass. The nominals do fit the time period of 1984. “Buu Chinh” was the typical official inscription on stamps in the 1980’s. The design of the stamps is rather primitive but no more primitive than the locally designed and printed other Vietnamese stamp issues in the same time period. Remember that the nice looking and sophisticated commemorative stamps of Vietnam in the 1980’s were all produced outside the country. Checking them out under the microscope the Chinese-Vietnamese War stamps were printed using an Offset printing method (probably a laser printer) on thin cardboard like paper. It is clear that these stamps were never issued and they are not listed by any of the catalogues. No postal documentation that shows the production of these stamps or production steps have been seen as of yet which indicates that any mass production process had not even begun.

The editor would be grateful to learn from others if there is more known about this particular stamp set. Please use the contact feature on this website to provide your comments.

 

Registration Nr. 103575

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