Scott No: 806-809
Serial number: S68
Values in set: 4
Date of issue: December 15, 1964
Denomination: 40 fen
Designer: Wu Jiankun
Size of stamps: 27.5*48mm
Perforation: 11.5
Sheet composition: 50(10*5)
Printing process: Photogravure
Printing House: Beijing Postage Stamp Printing Works

S68 "Xin'an River Hydropower Station" special stamps were issued on December 15, 1964. The set consists of 4 stamps, printed by photogravure, designed by Wu Jiankun, and printed by the Beijing Stamp Factory. Stamp size 31 mm × 52 mm, perforation gauge 11.5, 50 stamps per sheet (10 × 5), with a total face value of 0.40 yuan for the set; circulations: 4-fen Dam Construction 4 million copies, 8-fen Installation 5 million copies, 8-fen River-Blocking Dam 5 million copies, and 20-fen Power Transmission 1 million copies.

Theme of the Set

The Xin'an River Hydropower Station is located in Jiande, Zhejiang. It is New China's first large high-dam hydropower station entirely designed, constructed, equipped, and installed by the country's own forces. Construction began in 1957, and it was completed and put into operation in 1960. The dam is a concrete wide-slot gravity dam, more than one hundred meters high, and the reservoir has a huge capacity—what is today known as Qiandao Lake. The station has an installed capacity of 665,000 kilowatts, and the electricity it generates is continuously transmitted to the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou industrial region, while also providing comprehensive benefits such as flood control, navigation, irrigation, and aquaculture. It is a landmark project of China's water conservancy and hydropower construction in the 1960s. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued this set, following the chronological order of project construction—from site construction, unit installation, and dam completion to outward power transmission—completely presenting the whole process of a large hydropower station from construction to commissioning and power transmission, and recording the major achievements of China's independent development of the hydropower cause.

Stamp Designs and Historical Background

Dam Construction

The design presents a bustling construction site: tall construction trestles stand in rows, large cranes are hoisting components and installing penstocks, workers are distributed on the trestles and scaffolding working intensively, and in the distance are the continuous, misty mountains of western Zhejiang. This stamp freezes the initial critical stage of project construction, depicting the heavy procedures of pouring the river-blocking dam body and laying underwater pipelines, and embodying the builders' hardships in opening mountains and building the dam in the gorge and overcoming complex hydrological and geological conditions.

Installation

The design focuses on the hoisting operation of the generator unit inside the powerhouse: the huge generator rotor hangs in midair, the hoisting equipment lifts it steadily, and the worker directing on the high platform appears small, setting off the enormous size of the unit. This hydro-generator unit was independently manufactured by the Harbin Electric Machinery Plant and was a large hydropower equipment independently developed in China at the time. With a top-down sectional composition, the picture clearly presents the heavy mechanical structure and the precise layers of components, expressing the breakthrough in the manufacture of domestically made heavy electromechanical equipment.

River-Blocking Dam

The design is the panorama of the hydropower station after completion: the towering dam cuts across the gorge, and the water from the spillway rushes down, churning up white waves. Gate chambers, powerhouses, and observation facilities are arranged on the dam; in front of the dam is the vast, calm reservoir lake, with lush green pines on the banks and layered distant mountains. It blends the giant man-made dam with the mountains and waters; it is both the landmark picture of project completion and displays the magnificent scene of a calm lake appearing in the high gorge after the high dam impounds water.

Power Transmission

The main subject of the design is a towering high-voltage transmission tower, with multiple transmission lines extending into the distance. In the background, the reservoir lake, contiguous farmland, village factories, and layered distant mountains unfold in sequence; this line is the main high-voltage transmission channel from Xin'an River to Hangzhou and Shanghai. Electric energy leaves the gorge and is transmitted to the towns and countryside and industrial and mining enterprises of East China, symbolizing the conversion of water conservancy energy into the driving force of national industrialization. It is the conclusion of the whole story.

Artistic Design Features

The set uniformly adopts a vertical stamp format and the expressive technique of color-ink Chinese painting, integrating the scattered perspective of traditional landscape painting and incorporating industrial projects into the mountain-and-water environment, differing from the common flat-color industrial posters. The picture combines solid and void: distant mountains are rendered with light ink washes, while the machinery and dam body in the foreground have solid, rigorous lines; the hard engineering facilities and the warm, gentle landscape artistic conception harmonize with each other, weighty yet elegant.

The photogravure printing has soft layers and can delicately distinguish the different textures of steel structures, concrete, flowing water, and mountain forests, with calm, elegant colors. The four stamps advance in the order of construction, unit installation, dam completion, and power transmission, with a coherent and complete narrative logic. Among the whole set, the 20-fen "Power Transmission" has a circulation of only 1 million copies and is the core key stamp of the set; it was mostly used for international letters, and few survive; the 4-fen "Dam Construction" also has a relatively small surviving quantity.