Year of the Tiger

SingPost has launch some new Chinese Zodiac stamps today to celebrate the coming Year of the Tiger. 

Here are the specifications:

Date of issue: 7 January 2022

Denominations: 1st local & $1.40

Stamp size: 37.5mm x 26mm

1st local self-adhesive stamp booklet size: 90mm x 68mm (closed) 

Minipane size: 98mm x 68mm

Collector’s sheet with $10 stamp size: 120mm x 120mm

Perforation (1st local & $1.40): 14.40 x 14.615

Paper: Unwatermarked

Printing process: Offset lithography (stamps), Offset lithography with laser die-cut and gold hot stamping (collector’s sheet)

Sheet content: 10 stamps per sheet

Printers: Southern Colour Print (stamps), Royal Joh Enschde B.V. (collector’s sheet)

Designers: Lim An-Ling (stamps), Andy Koh (collector’s sheet)


Stamp set

Minipane

I went on to get the Collector’s Sheet as well. It comes with a set of 8 red packets for the Lunar New Year.


Collector’s Sheet with the Chinese character for “Tiger”.

Design of the red packets or what we Chinese would like to call, “Ang Bao”.

I was born in the Year of the Tiger, can confirm that these traits are real. 😋
Source: SingPost


There are other items such as postcards, booklets, sheetlets and FDCs. I didn’t get those as I don’t collect them.


It has been quite customary for me to take time off from work and queue up to get the SAM machine labels at GPO every year. There are 2 locations from which you can get the Tiger zodiac machine labels, one is at GPO and the other is at Suntec City Post Office. I went to queue up at both locations. I was there early at 8am and luckily there wasn’t that many people in the queue yet. The GPO and the Philatelic Store were crowded with fellow collectors later in the day but social distancing measures were still practiced thanks to the Philatelic Ambassadors at SingPost and civic-minded collectors. A couple of friends and I made our way over to Suntec City Post Office once we were done. It was surprisingly empty save for a few collectors there.


Saw some familiar faces while queuing up for the machine labels.

Only 50 labels/pax. Those who wanted more had to rejoin the queue.


Self-adhesive SAM label from GPO with the machine number S796.

 
SAM label from Suntec City P.O. with machine number S059.

I was lucky to see the insides of a SAM kiosk when a technician opened up the machine to service the printer a few times. The self-adhesive labels have already been pre-printed with a design, the printer on the SAM kiosk only handles the printing of the machine’s location code and the face value. It is then cut into individual pieces and dispense from the machine.


What a SAM Kiosk looks like. SAM is an acronym which stands for “Self-service Automated Machines”.



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