An antique collector in northern China's Hebei Province says he's recently gained a piece of special collection of high value, a Japanese girl's application paper for becoming a prostitute, submitted in 1921.

In this picture taken recently, the paper on the left carries the insurer's signature and is sealed by the police station of the Republic of China, the prevailing administration between 1912 and 1949; while on the right piece, the applicant fills the blanks with her name, nationality, age, address and justification for wanting to become a prostitute, as well as proof of having volunteered to do so. A black-and-white photo of the prostitute-to-be is also pasted under the characters "from Tianjin police station to Tianjin city government". [Xinhua]

The collector from Bazhou city, surnamed Shi, told the Hebei-based Yanzhao Metro Daily he spotted the application paper days ago from an old porcelain flask he purchased in 2003 at the price of 300 yuan or 40 US dollars.

The application paper, printed in the original complex form of simplified Chinese characters, consists of two parts for the applicant and her insurer respectively. The 21-year old Japanese girl gave her name, age, nationality, address and explained her reason for becoming a prostitute - poverty, with the announcement that she had volunteered to do so.

On the other hand, the insurer also signed her name to guarantee that the applicant would observe the law and regulations. The paper would be submitted to the then-Tianjin police station before being further transferred to the Tianjin government during the rein of the Republic of China between 1912 and 1949.

Mr. Shi told the newspaper that two such papers have been found in China before, according to his friends, who share the same interest in their collections.

He claims the paper has a value of collection since it tells of the social climate in the prosperous port city of Tianjin under which prostitution was officially allowed, before the founding of new China.