Scott No: 567-568
Serial number: C87
Values in set: 2
Date of issue: June 20, 1961
Denomination: 18 fen
Designer: Wu Jianlun
Size of stamps: 26*36mm
Perforation: 11
Sheet composition: 50(10*5)
Printing process: Photogravure
Printing House: Beijing Postage Stamp Printing Works

C87 "Centenary of the Birth of Zhan Tianyou" commemorative stamps were issued by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications on June 20, 1961. The set consists of 2 stamps, designed by Wu Jiankun, printed by the Beijing Stamp Factory by photogravure, with gum applied to the back of the entire set. The uniform stamp size is 26 mm × 36 mm, perforation gauge 11, 50 stamps per sheet, layout 10 × 5, with a total face value of 0.18 yuan for the set. Circulations: Portrait of Zhan Tianyou 8 fen, 8 million copies; Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway 10 fen, 3 million copies. 1961 marked the centenary of Zhan Tianyou's birth, and this set is also New China's first commemorative stamp set to commemorate a modern engineering and technical figure.

Stamp Designs and Historical Background

Portrait of Zhan Tianyou

The design is a half-length portrait of Zhan Tianyou in his later years, with slicked-back hair, a short beard, wearing a suit and tie, with a gentle yet resolute face and a level gaze forward—a realistic portrait painted from a photograph of his later years. At the top of the stamp, printed horizontally, are the words "Centenary of the Birth of Zhan Tianyou 1861–1961," on a light yellow-green background, with a clean composition and no background scenery added.

Zhan Tianyou was a native of Nanhai County, Guangdong, born in 1861, and a pioneer in the history of modern Chinese science and engineering technology. In 1872, at the age of only twelve, he went to study in the United States as one of China's first official groups of young students sent abroad, later entering the Department of Civil Engineering at Yale University to specialize in railway engineering and earning a bachelor's degree. After returning to China, he entered the Chinese Railway Company as an engineer in 1888 and successively participated in the construction of several railway sections. In 1905 he was appointed to preside over the construction of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, the first trunk railway designed and built by the Chinese themselves. The project crossed the Yanshan Mountains with perilous terrain; he creatively set up a "/\"-shaped switchback line in the Qinglongqiao area to solve the problem of climbing steep slopes, and also shortened the length of the Badaling Tunnel, boring through a tunnel more than one thousand meters long; the entire line was completed in 1909, two years ahead of the scheduled construction period and 280,000 taels of silver under budget. This stamp takes his own image as its subject, commemorating this engineer's character and achievements.

Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway

The design takes the most perilous section of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, at Badaling and Juyongguan. In the foreground is the portal of the Juyongguan Tunnel, with a steam locomotive driving out of the tunnel mouth belching thick smoke; high on the mountain ridge the railway winds and turns, and another train climbs along the "/\"-shaped line, with layered distant mountains and the Great Wall and passes faintly visible among them. The whole picture is in brown tones, with a steady, antique atmosphere and a strong realistic feel.

The Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway is about two hundred kilometers long, running from Fengtai in Beijing through Juyongguan, Badaling, Shacheng, and Xuanhua to Zhangjiakou; construction began in 1905 and it was completed in 1909. The Badaling area has high mountains and steep slopes, and foreign engineers at the time asserted that the Chinese could not complete it independently. Zhan Tianyou adopted the "/\"-shaped switchback line, having trains reverse and climb at Qinglongqiao, which both reduced the gradient and avoided excavation of an excessively long tunnel; during construction he also used the mid-distance shaft method, digging vertical shafts down from the mountain top and then excavating simultaneously toward both ends from the shaft bottom to speed up progress. The tunnel and switchback line in this picture are precisely the places with the highest technical difficulty on the entire line and the most representative of engineering wisdom.

Artistic Design Features

The set uses a small vertical format, with the two stamps forming a contrast of "person" and "deed": one establishes the person through a portrait, the other records the achievement through a scene; the former focuses on the individual, the latter lays out the project, and together they completely explain a person's life. The first uses a monochrome light green flat color, fading the background to highlight the figure's facial structure, with an approachable temperament and no heroic exaggeration. The second uses brown as its main tone, using the delicate layers of photogravure to express the depth of the mountain body, clouds and mist, smoke and steam, and the rails, with solid dark areas and hazy smoke, carrying the flavor of an old photograph or old print, expressing both "peril" and "passage" at the same time.