Download this report as an MP3 sound file.

For broadcast on CBS Radio Network stations January 4-5, 2003:


Stamps to get your goat.


The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.


Or perhaps it's to RAM home a little profit for postal agencies. This is the Year of the Ram,
or Goat, or Sheep in the 12-year Lunar New Year Cycle. There is no distinction between sheep 
and goats in Chinese.


Even English-speaking countries are issuing stamps to celebrate the year, and it's not just 
because they have significant Asian populations: Stamp collecting is hot in Asia, and 
collectors in the Far East are an important market.


Canada is first out of the pen with its Year of the Ram stamps, issued this past Friday. 
The single stamp shows a ram, the mini-sheet a goat. The designs were based on photographs 
of carvings sculpted just for the stamps.


Next up is Australia's Christmas Island on Monday, with two stamps and a special sheet 
that depict a Chinese folk tale about goats. 


A week later, the U-S weighs in with the eleventh in its series, a single Ram stamp 
based on a cut-paper design by Clarence Lee.


And that's stamp collecting this week. 


I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News. 


----------------------------------------------------------
Go to Previous Report
Go to Next Report 

Go to Report Index