Shanghai International Settlement - Postal Services in The International Settlement

Postal Services in The International Settlement

Shanghai had developed a postal service as early as the Ming Dynasty, but during the treaty port era foreign postal services were organized through their respective consulates. For example, the United States Post Office Department maintained a United States Postal Agency at the Shanghai consulate through which Americans could use the U.S. Post Office to send mail to and from the U.S. mainland and U.S. territories. Starting in 1919 the 16 current regular U.S. stamps were overprinted for use in Shanghai with the city's name, "China", and amounts double their printed face values. In 1922 texts for two of the overprints were changed, thereby completing the Scott catalog set of K1-18, "Offices in China".

The British originally used British postage stamps overprinted with the local currency amount, but from 1868, the British changed to Hong Kong postage stamps already denominated in dollars. However, in the special case of Shanghai, in the year 1865 the International settlement began to issue its own postage stamps, denominated in the local Shanghai tael unit.

The Shanghai Post Office controlled all post within the Settlement, but post coming in or going out of the treaty port was required to go through the Chinese Imperial Post Office. In 1922 the various foreign postal services, the Shanghai Post Office and the Chinese Post Office were all brought together into a single Chinese Post Office, thus extending the 1914 membership of the Chinese Post Office to the Universal Postal Union to Shanghai Post Office. Some other foreign countries refused to fall under this new postal service's remit, however: for many years, Japan was notable as sending almost all its mail to Shanghai in diplomatic bags, which could not be opened by postal staff.

The General Shanghai Post Office was first located on Beijing Road and moved to the location on Sichuan North Road of the General Post Office Building, Shanghai that is today the Shanghai Post Museum.