Special 379 New Year’s Greeting Postage Stamps (1997) (D379)

Stamp SN : D379
Stamp Name : Special 379 New Year’s Greeting Postage Stamps (1997)
Stamp Cat Standard : Special Stamps
Stamp Cat : Lunar New Year,Zodiac
Issue date : 1997-12-01
Dimension of stamps(mm.) : 26 X 34(mm)
Size of souvenir Sheet (mm.) : 78 X 102(mm)
Printer : China Color Printing Co., Inc., R.O.C.
Sheet composition : 20 (4 X 5)
Perforation : 12 1/2 X 12

To accommodate the need of the public to send New Year's Greeting cards, the Directorate will release a set of two New Year's Greeting Postage Stamps (Issue of 1997), as well as souvenir sheets and stamp booklets. The Chinese has traditionally used double-revolving combinations of the Ten Celestial Stems and the Twelve Terrestrial Branches to designate years. Every 60-year is a full cycle, which is called a chia-tzu, for the first stem and first branch. The Twelve Terrestrial Branches also have animal representations: tzu (rat), chou (ox), yin (tiger), mao (rabbit), chen (dragon), szu (snake), wu (horse), wei (sheep), shen (monkey), yu (rooster), hsu (dog) and hai (pig). Each year the Directorate issues New Year's Greeting Postage Stamps taking the upcoming year's animal sign as their theme, which has been called as Chinese Zodiac Stamps. 1998, is the wu-yin year, the Year of the tiger. To welcome in the year of the tiger, the Directorate has chosen Mr. Liao Che-fu's tiger design to issue a set of two New Year's Greeting Postage Stamps (Issue of 1997). The two stamps will have a face value of NT$3.50 and NT$13.00 each respectively. The souvenir sheet is composed of two sets of these stamps, worth NT$33.00. The stamp booklet is composed of twelve NT$3.50 stamps, with a total value of NT$42.00.