The Singapore Post issued on 4 January 2013 the Year of Serpent stamps with the current 3-stamp zodiac format, with the denominations of 1st local, 65-cent and $1.10. As usual, the 1st local was also issued in a self-adhesive format sheetlets of 10 stamps; and a collector's sheet comprising 2 stamps with denominations of $5 and $10, sold at post office for $16.80.
All the 3 stamps are illustrated with stylised snakes, emblazoned with auspicious chinese characters. The character in the 1st local stamp is 幅 pronounced as fu, that means wealth, in the 65-cent stamp the character is 瑞 pronounced as rui, that means great auspice. The $1.10 stamp has 4 characters 福满乾坤 pronounced as fu man qian kun (han yu pin yin), that can be translated as wealth-filled universe.
The stamps are issued in sheetlets of 10 stamps, and the selvage of the top plate blocks carries another set of 4 chinese characters 金蛇呈祥 pronounced as jin she cheng xiang, that can be translated as the golden snake bringing fortune.
The collector's sheet is printed with offset printing incorporating metallic ink and UV varnish. The stamps contain hidden images which are revealed through a plastic fresnel effect lens, that comes with the collector's sheet. The hidden image in the $10 is easily revealed as a horse, the zodiac animal that symbolizes the following year of 2014; the image in the $5 should be a dragon representing the previous year of 2012, but this image is not easily seen.
