The Chinese traditional society used the Chinese traditional calendar because it fitted well to the agricultural production strongly characterized by reasons. This kind of traditional calendar which relates to the fullness or incompleteness of the moon is also called “the lunar calendar”. The Chinese traditional calendar uses the ten Heavenly Stems as serial numbers and also in combination with the twelve Earthly Branches to designate years, months, days, and hours. Sixty kinds of combinations can be achieved by making pairs with Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, and so on from the ten Heavenly Stems and Zi, Chou, Yin, Mou, and so on from the twelve Earthly Branches in cycles. The twelve Earthly Branches are used as well to combine with twelve kinds of animals. Thus each year has one of the names of the twelve symbolic animals with a 12-year cycle, which is called “Sheng Xiao” of this year. Consequently Renshen Year is the Year of Monkey. The person who was born this year is called the one who was born in the year of monkey.

These two stamps is the first set of the lunar year stamps in the second circle, designed by the means of Chinese folk paper-cut. The first stamp depicts a peach with the figure of a monkey, which can be always used to celebrate someone’s birthday. The second stamp shows a Chinese seal character of monkey in the background of red paper-cut featuring a magpie is announcing good news to everyone.

Year of the Monkey

Year of the Monkey

Stamp Title: Year of the Monkey
Serial number: 1992-1
Values in set: 2
Date of issue: January 25, 1992
Designers: Cao Hongnian; Xu Yanbo
Engravers: Hu Zhenyuan
Size: 26*31mm
Perforation: 11.5
Sheet composition: 32
Printing process: gravure-engraving combined

Knowing China Through Chinese Stamps

国家邮政局1992年1月5日发行《壬申年-猴》特种邮票1套2枚。
（2-1）T 猴桃瑞寿 20分 23374.5万枚
（2-2）T 喜鹊登梅 50分 20400.1万枚
志号名称：1992-1T
版别：影写、雕刻
整版枚数：32 枚
全套面值：0.70元
邮票规格：26 × 31毫米
齿孔度数：11×11.5度
设计者：曹鸿年、许彦博、王振华
雕刻者：呼振源
印制机构：北京邮票厂

P.S. 《壬申年-猴》特种邮票从1992-1《壬申年》邮票起，启用了新的志号“编年号”，不分纪、特邮票，一律按年份排序；铭记也由原来的“中国人民邮政”改为“中国邮政”，票面上还加印了英文“CHINA”（中国）字样，并沿用至今。第二轮生肖邮票的设计原则是每套生肖邮票由第一轮的全套一枚改为全套两枚，图案“一图一文，一明一暗，两平两立，真、草、隶、篆三年一换”。第1枚以我国民间工艺生肖图为主；第2枚以我国不同字体的生肖名称为主。