The history of the Chinese postal system stretches back at least to the year 1000 B.C. By the time Marco Polo visited the great empire in the 1100s, China maintained at least 10,000 different post offices. For more important postal deliveries, China employed a sophisticated system of professional letter carriers, known as the Min Hsin Chu. China's post was self-contained until the year 1727, when the country developed a mutual postal pact with its neighbor, Russia.

Despite the inevitability of communion with the West, China sealed off its borders and its postal system. However, following its defeat in war against Britain, China ended up adopting Western-style postal stamps. The first China stamp to go to print was called the ''Large Dragon.'' On May 1st, 1878, this stamp, which featured Chinese and Roman writing, first got distributed at the Shanghai post.

The Chinese postal system produced a flurry of stamps in the late 1800s. In 1885, the Chinese produced a one-candareen stamp. During the 1880s, the government routed the majority of the nation's mail through one main station in Shanghai. However, seeing that this was impractical, officials opened 11 more post offices around the region. The elite Min Hsu Chin was finally dismantled in favor of a more Western-style postal service.

Beginning in 1897, the Chinese Imperial Postal Service handled the vast majority of international and national mail. Bowing to economic pressure, the Chinese agreed to have Japan lithograph the country's first half-cent stamp, which was released in 1897. Many variations of this 1897 stamp exist, and it is considered a valuable collector's item.