The Golden Monkey Stamp or Gēngshēn Monkey is a postage stamp issued in China in 1980 of which 5 million copies were printed.
[2] The stamp is in the popular Chinese zodiac series for the Chinese new year, 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.
[3][4] In Chinese culture the number 8 and the colour red are both seen as lucky.
Although the stamp was initially common, a full sheet of 80 sold for 1.2 million yuan ($180,000 or £117,200[5]) 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.
[7] In August 2011, a complete sheet sold for HK$1.44M (£117,300) in Zurich Asia's Hong Kong sale, and another sheet sold for HK$1.495,000 (£122,700) at an InterAsia sale in September 2011.