Man’s best friend in spotlight on Canada’s two Lunar New Year stamps

By Molly Goad

Dog lovers will delight in Canada Post’s two new stamp designs issued for the Year of the Dog, which begins Feb. 16.

The Jan. 15 new issue marks the 10th in Canada Post’s 12-year Lunar New Year series, which began with Year of the Ox stamps in 2009 (Scott 2296-2297).

The Year of the Dog stamps were designed by Roy White and Liz Wurzinger of Subplot Design Inc. in Vancouver, British Columbia. In creating these designs, they emphasized the importance of the lantern as a quintessential symbol of the Lunar New Year celebrations.

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“We wanted it to play a pivotal role in the design of these stamps, so we came up with the idea of translating Meimei Mao’s intricate dog illustrations onto these beautiful, illuminated lanterns,” they said in Canada Post’s Details magazine for collectors. “Raeff Mile’s photographs of them capture the warmth, richness and depth we were striving for.”

The stamp for the permanent domestic letter rate (85¢) features an illustration of a red dog on a glowing, golden lantern. The $2.50 international-rate stamp shows the opposite coloring, with an illustration of a golden dog on a red lantern.

Both stamps contain the Chinese character for dog in calligraphy by Albert Ng in the lower left. The stamps are square, 32 millimeters by 32mm.

The permanent stamps are available in booklets of 10 and a pane of 25, and the $2.50 stamp in a booklet of six and two souvenir sheets.

A long souvenir sheet (40 millimeters by 140mm) has the $2.50 stamp at the bottom. The other souvenir sheet (118mm by 90mm) includes both the international-rate Year of the Dog and the 2017 Year of the Rooster (Scott 2885) stamps.

Lowe-Martin printed the Year of the Dog booklets of six and 10 by lithography, and the pane of 25 and the two souvenir sheets by lithography combined with embossing and foil stamping.

People born in the Year of the Dog are said to be some of the most loyal and likeable people around. They are known to be trustworthy, protective, courageous and driven by a sense of duty and justice. While they can be stubborn and snappy at times, dogs get along with just about everyone.

Canada Post noted famous Canadians born in the Year of the Dog include pop star Justin Bieber (born in 1994), singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (1934-2016), and Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942).

The printing quantities for the Year of the Dog stamps are 62,000 panes of 25 of the permanent-rate stamp (Canada Post item 404069107), 275,000 booklets of 10 of the permanent-rate stamp (414069111), 90,000 booklets of six of the $2.50 stamp (414070111), 170,000 souvenir sheets of one $2.50 stamp (404069145), and 90,000 souvenir sheets of two (404070145).

Canada Post also is offering postal stationery, first-day covers, and uncut press sheets.

The uncut press sheet contains 12 of the scroll-shaped souvenir sheets with a single $2.50 stamp in three rows of four. Each stamp is set below an image of glowing lanterns. On either side, Ng’s calligraphy spells out two traditional Lunar New Year greetings. A total of 8,000 uncut press sheets were produced (404069149).

Canada Post will service 21,000 first-day covers bearing the permanent stamp (404069121) and 22,000 FDCs for the souvenir sheet of one (404069144). The FDCs will bear Vancouver, British Columbia, postmarks.

Two international-rate postal cards feature the same designs as the postage stamps. The postal stationery item numbers are 262469 for the postal card with the design of the permanent-rate stamp, and 262470 for the card with the international-rate stamp design.

Canada Post stamps and related items are available online. Stamps and FDCs are available by mail order from Canada Post Customer Service, Box 90022, 2701 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, ON K1V 1J8 Canada; or by telephone from the United States or Canada at 800-565-4362, and from other countries at 902-863-6550.

They also are available from many new-issue stamp dealers, and from Canada Post’s agent in the United States: Interpost, Box 420, Hewlett, NY 11557.