Lunar New Year Stamps

I was rummaging through my Hong Kong material and noticed that the ealiest set of Lunar New Year stamps in the material was dated 1967. These were succeeded by several years where the animals depictions were almost photograhic rather than stylized as seen in recent years. I have shown some of the early sets below - in very varied condition as it is not something that I have paid much attention to before.

Can anyone tell me whether the 1967 date is the earliest or among the earliest issues on this topic? If it's not, what is the earliest? I think it might make a very interesting topical collection to pull together the first cycle of stamps issued by each country that participates in this series.










Obviously I don't have the set for this year!

Apparently Japan was the first country to release Lunar New Year stamps, back in December 1935. More information about Lunar New Year stamps can be found in this link, the main topic being Year of the Dog:

http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/t...g-on-stamps/

Cool stamps. It would be nice and interesting to see a progression.

I have noticed Canada Lunar New Year stamps have changed and improved over the years (few as they are).