The Financial Times noted today that a set of four very rare stamps from China's Cultural Revolution period sold at a Hong Kong auction for a price well beyond the asking price. The stamps are shown here, and were sold via Interasia Auctions.
While the FT article wanders into a discussion of other collectibles, such as A-list vintage wine, the heart of the story is about the Chinese historical event that will not go quietly into the night. The Cultural Revolution was a ghastly nightmare for China. The period remains something of an object lesson in mass hysteria, an unreasoned belief in cult figures, and a blind allegiance to ideology.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I once knew someone who had a marvelous stamp collection focused on the Cultural Revolution. The stamps reflected an eerie world in which zealotry supplanted argument, families turned against their own relatives, and xenophobic fervor reached dangerous levels. No one wants to see that time resurrected, except putting it under one's thumb for a highly valuable scrapbook collection.
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