EThe next Chinese New Year begins on 8th February and lasts until 27th January 2017, and the zodiac animal that represents this coming year is the monkey. The Chinese horoscope names each year after a different animal, following a 12-year cycle.
The monkey is in ninth place in the list of animals of the Chinese horoscope. The sign of the monkey is associated with intelligence, curiosity and subterfuge. It is considered to be the most versatile of all the signs, and people born in the Year of the Monkey are believed to be particularly talented in the areas of creativity and art.
The founding of the People’s Republic of China (1949) led to the issuing of stamps related to the subjects of history and popular beliefs. Among the different series of stamps published, there was one devoted to the Chinese Zodiac. Each stamp in the series was illustrated with that particular year’s animal.
The stamp known as the Golden Monkey (Gēngshēn) was brought into circulation on 15th February 1980, with over 5 million copies placed on sale. Given that it was such a large print run, one would expect that it should be quite easy to get hold of one of these stamps nowadays, but that is not the case. In fact, it is almost impossible to buy one, and they have now been given the classification of “rare”. There are a number of reasons for this, one being, of course, the fact that the monkey is the Zodiac animal for the coming New Year (in accordance with the 12-year cycle); however, the main reason is that stamp collecting in China is currently experiencing something of a boom.
Once they had put behind them Mao Tse-tung’s belief that stamp collecting was an essentially bourgeois activity, Chinese society began to show a growing interest in their country’s postal history. China’s biggest auction houses can testify to the way in which the earliest Chinese stamps have gained in value over the years. We can see some of these in the Ramon Marull Philatelic Collection, such as the Candarins, issued during the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911), and the stamps that were overprinted with centavos, etc. We have included a small selection of them below this article. However, there were other stamps that were issued during the 20th century, such as the ones related with the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), as well as the Zodiac series. In fact, a complete sheet of Golden Monkey stamps was sold in Hong Kong for $1,265 million – an incredibly high figure for a stamp that was issued so recently.
And so, if you are thinking of purchasing a stamp commemorating the Year of the Monkey, we would suggest that you choose one of the more affordable ones, such as those issued this month – January 2016 – by Gibraltar, New Zealand, Canada and Singapore.
