For the fifth year, Tiger Pan illustrates the UN’s CNY stamp series, featuring a horse honouring a Han Dynasty treasure. Photo: Handout
Dove tailing with Year of the Fire Horse celebrations, countries around the world have released special-edition stamps featuring striking, elegant designs.
Each issue is adorned with its own symbols and meanings, subtly infused with national identity and cultural significance. Whether you’re a seasoned philatelist or simply an art lover, these stamps have also grown in popularity, with nearly 20 countries – and the United Nations – issuing their own designs.
While we’re still waiting for Pos Malaysia Berhad to join the Chinese New Year (CNY) parade with its own Horse-themed collection, there is no shortage of eye-catching festive stamps worldwide to admire in the meantime.
Here are some standout picks:
New Zealand’s CNY stamps celebrate how Chinese ancestors used their skills andheritage – through farming or cuisine – to build a better future. Photo: New Zealand Post
New Zealand
When the voices of children are heard in the morning, and Fire Horses are galloping in the wind, we have New Zealand’s YMC Design to thank. This Kiwi CNY stamp set features four stamps made with lithography on Tullis Russell Tru-white non-phosphor gummed paper, each with its own distinct colours and epithets.
The first is called “Lucky Peach”, which symbolises immortality. The second uses the parallelism “Good Food, Good Fortune”, where the spring rolls, deeply embedded with the Spring Festival, connect with promises of wealth and prosperity.
The third is named “Giving and Receiving”, where child and horse gallop past lilies in bloom, which symbolise good fortune and happiness. “Service is success” is the fourth and final stamp, which features the cherub children holding a kumara (sweet potato).
This is a nod to the Chinese refugee couple Joe and Fay Gock, who basically saved the New Zealand kumara in the early 1960s and won the Bledisloe Cup in 2013 for their contributions to horticulture.
A close-up view of Chinese artist Tiger Pan's illustration for UN’s CNY 2026 stamp series. Photo: Handout
United Nations
Illustrated by Chinese artist Tiger Pan for the fifth consecutive year, the United Nations has issued a horse-themed stamp honouring an ancient treasure.
Inspired by the Eastern Han Dynasty bronze “Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Swallow”, the horse is vivid crimson, draped in gold.
Tabs beside the Fire Horse display the UN logo against a gold background. Its pose is both commanding and elegant, blending strength with grace to symbolise resilience and determination.
These collectible UN stamps are available from United Nations Postal Administration offices in person or by mail, and from stamp dealers. Notably, they are only valid for postage when used on mail from the UN offices in New York (United States), Geneva (Switzerland) and Vienna (Austria).
A SingPost design welcoming the Year of the Horse. Photo: SingPost
Singapore
Depicting a chase, SingPost evokes the Horse through speed and angularity, moving beyond the Fire Horse motif.
Instead, the colours of white and blue pay tribute to Qinghua porcelain, representing a clean slate for the New Year. Furthermore, these, in tandem with the horses’ small size, may symbolise innocence that is bold and adventurous.
The first horse shows independence, while the second reveals family harmony – notice the smaller white horse’s shared pose with the blue horse.
China Post’s special two-stamp set captures the Fire Horse in all its power, strength, and commanding presence. Photo: Handout
China
This special two-stamp set by China Post stages horse imagery in its potency, power, and solidarity. The first stamp depicts a red horse galloping over clouds, adorned with a ceremonial saddle featuring a peony design. The saddle represents peace, and the peony prosperity.
The same can be said for the second stamp, which features three horses of different colours, against the backdrop of the sun, are emblematic of unity and new beginnings. These horses, in their shared direction and gaze, as well as their outstretched legs, call to mind the idiom of “Ma Dao Cheng Gong”.
Now that the horses have arrived, swift victory has arrived with it.
Jersey Post stamp and miniature sheet designs take inspiration from traditional Chinese paper cuttings. Photo: Jersey Post
Jersey
Jersey, an island 137km from mainland Britain and just 22km off France, is also joining in the CNY festivities.
Inspired by traditional Chinese paper-cutting techniques and artwork from the Qing dynasty, Wang Huming’s rendition of the Fire Horse designed for Jersey – a British crown dependency – uses four colour offset lithography as well as gold metallic ink with varnish. This Jersey Post CNY stamp has a bold colour scheme.
On the horse’s saddle and back are peonies, the “king of the flowers”, which represent auspiciousness. In the case of bursting forth from the horse’s back, this auspiciousness cannot be restrained for the Year of the Fire Horse.
Jersey Post has been issuing Lunar New Year stamps since 2016.
Taiwan’s red horse, issued by Chunghwa Post, symbolises joy, prosperity, and hopes for a successful, bright New Year. Photo: Chunghwa Post
Taiwan
Taiwan’s Chunghwa Post has released a set of two New Year stamps and a souvenir sheet, featuring one red horse and one white horse. The horses are depicted in calm, balanced poses, symbolising stability and solidarity.
According to Chunghwa Post, the design reflects the lunar couplet: “May you be as spirited as a dragon and a horse.”
The horses’ chests are the focal point, representing strength and spirit, while the pairing reinforces the theme of doubleness. The red horse signifies prosperity and joy, and the white horse embodies vitality and fortitude.
The ¥110 stamp from Japan Post features a traditional folk craft wooden horse called ‘Miharu-Koma’. Photo: Handout
Japan
In a much different direction comes a set of four stamps from Japan Post. The designs for the stamps were based on drawings by Japanese artist Kawasaki Kyosen (1877-1942), who was known for his drawings of traditional Japanese toys and handicrafts.
Hailing from the Masumida Shrine in the city of Ichinomiya, the ¥85 stamp shows us “Tawara Uma”, a white clay horse carrying sacks of rice.
“Miharu-Koma” is the name for the black painted wooden horse on the ¥110 stamp, and it comes from the city of Miharu in Fukushima Prefecture.
Horses carrying rice sacks and wooden painted horses both represent good fortune. Notice the numbers at the top of the two white horse stamps? These stamps double as lottery tickets, each with its own individual number – a practice which is exclusive in Japan.
