The Chinese Golden Monkey Stamp was a postage stamp

Postage stamp

A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

 issued in China in 1980 of which 5 million copies were printed and which therefore cannot be regarded as rare but which has come to symbolise the strong market for collectable postage stamps in Asia. Demand for the stamp has made it one of the most sought after contemporary Chinese stamps.

Technical details

The stamp was designed by Huang Yongyu and Shao Bolin and printed by the photogravure

Photogravure

Photogravure is an intaglio printmaking or photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which had been exposed to a film positive, and then etched, resulting in a high quality intaglio print that can reproduce the detail and continuous tones of a...

 and recess printing methods. It is perforated 11.5.

Chinese New Year stamps

The stamp is in the popular Chinese Zodiac

Chinese zodiac

The Shēngxiào , better known in English as the Chinese Zodiac, is a scheme that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes, according to a 12-year mathematical cycle...

 series for the Chinese new year

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...

, the most recent of which is the 2011 Year of the Rabbit stamp which sold out at post offices in China within a few hours. In Chinese culture the number 8 and the colour red are both seen as lucky.

Philatelic value

Although the stamp was initially common, it is frequently offered at Asian philatelic auctions. Despite having a very low value when issued, a full sheet of this stamp sold for 1.2 million yuan ($180,000) in 2011 with a single stamp selling for 10,000 yuan ($1,500), which was 125,000 times more than its original price of 8 fen. The stamp had a catalogue value of US$10 unused and US$5 used in 1988.

See also

• Asian philately
  Asian philately
  Asian philately, or Far-Eastern philately, is a specialized area of philately which focuses on the stamps of China, Japan, Hong Kong and neighboring countries. Stamp collectors and stamp dealers often specialize in a particular aspect of Asian philately, and many stamp auctions are devoted to this...
  
  
• China Philatelic Society of London
  China Philatelic Society of London
  The China Philatelic Society of London is a philatelic organisation devoted to the study of all aspects of Chinese philately from the Municipal Posts of the Treaty Ports to the People's Republic and Taiwan.-Origins:...
  
  
• China Stamp Society
  China Stamp Society
  The China Stamp Society is a philatelic organization dedicated to the appreciation of the postage stamps and postal history of China, including the Treaty Ports, Foreign Offices in China, the Japanese Occupation, Hong Kong, Macao, Manchukuo and Tibet....
  
  
• Postage stamps and postal history of the People's Republic of China
  Postage stamps and postal history of the People's Republic of China
  Although postal service in China goes back some 2,500 years, modern postal services were not established until 1877 by the Qing government. The postal system of the People's Republic of China was established as the General Postal Administration in Beijing in 1949, growing out of the posts that had...