How To Find Issues Of Chinese New Year Stamps (And Buy Them)

I'm interested in starting a collection of Chinese New Year stamps, probably mostly within the last few years and onwards, but maybe back about 25 years or so. I know the US, Canada, and obviously China (PRC and ROC) have annual issues, but I'm wondering what other countries normally have issues. Would this be best found via the American Topical Association, or is there some other source you suggest?

Additionally, any good online places to buy mint singles of them? I likely don't need full sheets/books unless there's multiple designs that are best collected that way

Christmas Island, now issued under Australian postal system also did them as well as countries you mention. Probably several other countries, just look through Scott standard catalogues by country.

Received my catalogue from Laposte in France and they are releasing year of the "water" Tiger this year. Just go to www.laposte.fr for France and her colonies if looking to buy direct from the French bank/post office group LaPoste through Philaposte. Be forewarned that minimum order values apply as with most buisnesses, and duties/collection fees will apply when coming into your country if over import limit.

Mike

If you go to stamp world and make an "advanced search" with the phrase "Chinese New Year" - you'll get 4700 results. You can trim it to the years you want. Will that do?

Hello, my main thematic collection is "Monkeys on stamps". This includes "Year of the Monkey" stamps.

In year 1968, the first year countries issued stamp to celebrate the New Year, only four!!! countries in the world issued stamps , all together issued five stamps and two SS's: Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Ryukyus (even China didn't issue any stamp celebrating the Chinese new year).

In 2016, the last year of the monkey, tens of countries in all continents issued stamps. I have a large stock book houses these 2016 stamps, and I collect only Monkeys.

So, if you want to collect all years, all animals, take in account that hundreds, if not thousands, of stamps were already issued by many countries and the list is always expanded.

Here are several pages from my stock book I took with my cellphone, hence the bad resolution:

LaoPhil, first, very lovely collection you've shown here.
Second, indeed there are thousands of stamps on the topic, but this shouldn't discourage a collector. There are WW collectors in this forum, and there are about half a million different stamps. Instead of looking at how much is left to 500,000 WW stamps or 4,700 Chinese New Year stamps, it's easier to look at "another set filled" or "another country added".

Shalom Rob Roy,

Sorry if my wording is not good, but I didn't mean to discourage a collector, just answered the question of the first post and said that today most countries in the world are issuing Chinese New Year stamps, even if they don't have Chinese communities. Still, there is less stamps than train or butterfly stamps that people like to collect and it is nice to build such collection.

Regards

Shalom Uvrakha LaoPhil
I understand and agree with your logic, ck wants to start collecting this new topic, and 4,700 stamps are a big goal that he might have not been aware of. On the bright side, it means that he'll be able to get many stamps that are not rare. Even stamp world offers most of them for sale.

...and to encourage ckildegaard, I am ready to send as a giveaway my spares: I have two different Tiger sheets from France, Rat set from NZ, Monkeys on 3 FDC's from Cuba, China PR and China RO and I sure I have one or two more items. Not a lot, but a nice start for this topic.

Here is one NZ rat, great design!!

Hello all,

Thanks so much for your responses. Wow, 4700 results on Hipstamp? I'm guessing that's saying back to 1968 though? In any case, it sounds like there are probably several sudden countries issuing? That sounds potentially expensive on an annual basis.

Any suggestions for narrowing this down further, then? Are there particular countries that you'd suggest I focus on?

LaoPhil: Thanks much for the offer of free stamps (I thin I'm understanding correctly?). Shall I PM you my address?

Please note that transactions and private messaging are not allowed until a member has reached 50+ posts.
Don

Ah, sorry, Don. Forgot/didn't know. Thanks for the reminder :)

CK, it's not hipstamp, it's stampworld.
As to how to limit the collection - follow what appeals to you:
You can focus on several countries, or certain years, or buy the cheap ones and then decide, or choose a few animals. There are no rules, collect what pleases you.

ckildegaard,
Yes, they are free if you decide to collect Chinese New Year stamps. Please, send me a message when you reach 50 posts and I will be glad to send you them.

My suggestion would be to start with all the USA issues (beginning 1992), and spread out from there. Collecting the USA issues will be cheap and easy, give you a good foundation, and most importantly a sense of accomplishment as a base from which to grow.

You could organize by country, and survey how each issuer changes themes over the years, or worldwide by year, with the scope naturally growing as time passes (Canada started in '97, Estonia 2011, etc). Just make sure you have a reason for what you decide to do, otherwise it's madness (to me at least, it's frustrating to ask a collector why and just get a shrug as an answer; so if you get Australia, you should logically get New Zealand, too).

For you Chinese New Year collector's out there take a look at lots 207-209.

https://stampauctionnetwork.com//D/d49811.cfm#46

Here is the first "Chinese New Year" issue from France (Year of the Rooster,2005)