Sale #46 - Northeastern Provinces of China Cancellations and Hung Hsien Empire

China, 1916 (15 Jan.) native registered envelope to Sendai, Japan (21.1) via Moukden (15.1) and Kwangchengtze (16.1) bearing on reverse Junk 1c. vertical pair (faulty due to application just over edge of envelope), 3c. and 5c., cancelled by "Shwangcehngpu/(Hung Hsien) first year" bilingual c.d.s. and showing similar "first year" c.d.s. for Kwangchengtze, both have variation in date slug with chiselled character for "first", framed registration h.s. alongside, very good to very fine strikes.
Estimate HK$ 25,000 - 30,000
For some post offices, the date slug for the Chinese character "First", which had been used in 1912 (the Republic first year), was either misplaced or damaged, and, while awaiting the new slugs, the Chinese character "Five" was chiselled down as a temporary measure, so as to look like the character "First".