Postcards, stamps, gold bars, silver coins, souvenir envelopes and other collectibles featuring Year of the Rabbit designs have been jointly launched by China Post and China Philatelic in Beijing.

According to the zodiac of the Chinese lunar calendar, the Year of the Rabbit will start on Jan 22, the first day of Chinese New Year. Every year China Post and China Philatelic will offer a series of creative products, patterned after the 12 zodiac animals in rotation, to mark the occasion.

Highlights from this year's offerings include a stamp album produced in collaboration with the Palace Museum in Beijing. It includes stamps showing rabbit-themed artifacts in the collection of the former Forbidden City. Another album includes selected stamps issued by China Post since 1983 to show the development of postage and stamp design through four decades.

The company will issue the annual zodiac stamps on Jan 5. Every year an artist is asked to design two zodiac stamps, and the designer for the Year of the Rabbit is Huang Yongyu, age 98, who has been commissioned with the task several other times. One stamp shows a blue rabbit holding a pencil and an envelope and text wishing for wisdom; another stamp shows three rabbits colored white, yellow and light blue running head to toe in a circle with a red background showing sketches of curling clouds. At the center is the Jade Rabbit, a companion of Chang'e, the moon goddess in Chinese mythology, making the elixir of life under a magic laurel tree.