Scott No: -
Serial number: 2025-10
Values in set: 4
Date of issue: June 21st, 2025
Denomination: 480 fen
Designer: Xing Wenwei
Size of stamps: 30 * 40 mm
Perforation: 13.5
Sheet composition:
16 for Sheet I;
8 for Sheet II (2 sets)
Size of sheet:
150 * 200 mm for Sheet I;
135 * 200 mm for Sheet II
Size of S/S: 150 * 90 mm
Size of S/S stamp: 65 * 70 mm
S/S Perforation: 13
Printing process:
Stamps: Offset + Engraving
S/S: Photogravure
Printing House: Beijing Postage Stamp Printing Works

China Post plans to issue a set of 4 special stamps and 1 souvenir sheet themed Ancient Chinese Calligraphy - Seal Script (II) on June 21, 2025. The stamps are titled Dayu Cauldron, Iron-footed Cauldron of King Zhongshan of the Warring States Period, Stone Drum · Carving of "My Chariot", and Langya Stone Carving respectively, while the souvenir sheet is themed He Zun. The total face value of the complete stamp set is 4.80 yuan, and the face value of the souvenir sheet is 6 yuan. The planned issuance volume is 5.9 million sets of regular stamps, 693,000 sheets of Format 2, and 4.7 million souvenir sheets.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Calligraphy is a treasure of Chinese culture that embodies profound spiritual essence, and we must pass it on and carry it forward with great dedication." Ancient Chinese calligraphy boasts a long and splendid history. It is not merely a way of writing characters, but also an artistic form for expressing personal emotions, thoughts and philosophical concepts. Tracing back to the oracle bone script era thousands of years ago, ancient Chinese calligraphy has gone through multiple stages of development, evolving into five major styles: seal script, clerical script, regular script, running script and cursive script. Over time, various schools and styles with unique characteristics and aesthetic values have emerged. Bronze artifacts, stone steles and calligraphy albums are important carriers of calligraphic art. Inscriptions on bronzes and stone carvings, thanks to the durability of their materials, have become crucial forms for inheriting calligraphy. Calligraphy albums, on the other hand, have facilitated the widespread dissemination of calligraphic art due to their ease of reproduction and circulation.

This set of stamps selects five precious cultural relics and conveys the millennia-old charm of seal script through rubbings of their bronze inscriptions and stone carvings. The Dayu Cauldron gets its name from Yu, a minister of King Kang of the Western Zhou Dynasty who ordered its casting. Featuring profound and solemn bronze script, it takes the first place in the set. With plump and straight strokes, it is recognized as an outstanding representative of bronze script calligraphy in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. The outer wall of the Iron-footed Cauldron of King Zhongshan of the Warring States Period is covered with 77 lines of inscriptions, totaling 469 characters, making it the Warring States bronze artifact with the longest inscriptions discovered so far. Its inscriptions, displaying elegant and flowing decorative charm, are a rare treasure among ancient Chinese characters from the pre-Qin period. The Stone Drums are a group of granite carvings shaped like round drums. During the Qin Dynasty, ten four-character poems were inscribed on the ten drum-shaped boulders, depicting the grand scenes of the monarch's hunting trips, and "My Chariot" is one of these drums. Known as the ancestor of stone carvings, the scripts on the Stone Drums record the stylistic transition from archaic seal script to small seal script. The Langya Stone Carving preserves a model of small seal script created by Li Si and ranks among China's earliest stone carvings. It serves as a landmark work representing the unification of Chinese characters in the Qin Dynasty. Though only the edict of the Second Emperor of Qin remains, it still bears the historical trace of the "unification of writing systems across the realm".

The souvenir sheet features the He Zun from the Western Zhou Dynasty. The inscription "Establish the Capital Here in the Central Kingdom" on it is not only the earliest physical and documentary evidence of the term "China" but also the source of inspiration for the design of China Post's logo.

The stamps are produced using the offset and engraving combination process. The background color of the inner image simulates the effect and texture of rubbings through three-dimensional carved patterns, while the color of the border decorations mimics the texture of paper, making the stamp content highly consistent with real rubbings. The souvenir sheet adopts the photogravure printing process, presenting clear images with rich layers. The full spot color separation printing enhances its anti-counterfeiting performance. The characters "China" in the image are designed with fluorescent effects, and the border inscription "Establish the Capital Here in the Central Kingdom" adopts the gold embossing process, which highlights the historical sense of the bronze artifact through textured effects. The bronze artifact on the right is painted in calm and distinct layers, embodying the mysterious and profound temperament of the He Zun.
The set of stamps is designed by Xing Wenwei, and the souvenir sheet by Ma Lihang. It is edited by Gan Zhige. Beijing Stamp Printing Co., Ltd. produced the stamps using the offset and engraving combination process, and the souvenir sheet via the photogravure printing process.