I am writing this post
from my hotel room in Sydney
where I spend very nice holidays. The
weather is warm and nice, even if a little bit cloudy.
Yesterday, Tuesday the
10th of January was the first day of issue of the stamps celebrating
the Chinese New year, the Year of the Dragon, issued by Australian post. Of
course, as you can imagine, I could not miss the opportunity to visit a post
office to try to buy some of the stamps are related products.
As during my last stay
in Sydney in 2009, buying stamps (well more
exactly buying the stamps you want) in a post office is almost as impossible as
in France!
I finally found what I was looking for, at the Sydney Philatelic
Center, located not very
far from my hotel.
I’m not really a big
fan of the stamps issued for the Chinese New Year. Very often this is only the
occasion for postal administrations to draw money away from collectors. And as
usual, Australian post did not hesitate: the number of philatelic items issued
for the occasion is really huge! Let’s have a look to what I have seen.
First the stamp set
itself.
The stamps show the
development of the Chinese character for the Dragon, shown fully in the $1.80
stamp, and the way it is derived from its pictorial representation, shown in
the 60c stamp. Paper cut motifs are used to represent the Dragon in the 60c
stamp. The Dragon occupies a special place in the Chinese zodiac, being the
only mythical creature among them.
The stamps can also be
purchased with decorated gutter.
Then there is the
miniature sheet.
The miniature sheet
tells the story (in Chinese and English) about the helpful, soft-hearted Dragon
who, although expected to win the race because he could fly, only came fifth
because he stopped during the race to create rain to break a severe drought and
then aided the rabbit, a fellow competitor, by gently blowing him across the
river on a raft.
Followed by the now
usual zodiac sheetlet.
There is a special
gold foil overprinting on the stamps, minisheet and zodiac sheetlet.
You can add on top a
stamp pack that can be used as a greeting card.
On the postal
stationeries side you can find a postal card and two pre-paid envelopes.
And I don’t show you the
FDCs, the prestige booklet and other miscellaneous items! Ouf!
No comments:
Post a Comment