COVER N.111 - USA

Postmark: New York NY 10199 20-01-22 / Year of the Tiger January 20, 2022 New York NY10199 First day of Issue
Posted on the 20th January; received on the 10th May 2022
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There's a saying that is probably quite common at worldwide level. Here, in my sunny country, it is expressed as "mais vale tarde do que nunca", and I will save you the trouble of running it through the translator, and use the Anglo-Saxon version "better late, than never".

We all have known delays in postal services during the past years due to the worldwide public health situation that finally seems to be under control due to the effects of vaccination, but on this front too, things are beginning to flow at a much better pace (even though I still haven't heard about a letter I posted to South Africa on the 1st of February this year arriving at its destination...😟)

The beautiful cover I got today with a First Day of Issue cancellation, and for which I  thank Ray a lot, is postmarked 20th January, New York...that is to say four and a half months ago...I suspect it came swimming across the pond 😀.

I confess my ignorance regarding the intricacies of the lunar new year, and so I had to go and check Wikipedia to learn that the animals that feature in the Chinese horoscope - and under the auspices of each one of them, cycles of 12 years unfold - were those that heeded the call of Buda to participate in some sort of fest, being, by order of arrival (thus the sequence of animals in the 12 year cycles): rat; ox; tiger; rabbit; dragon; serpent; horse; lamb; monkey; cock; dog; pig or boar.

2022 is again the year of Tiger, and so many postal administrations have issued stamps allusive to this fact, (I suspect that the theme must have a lot of collector fans), including the USPS, that on 20JAN2022 issued the  nice self-adhesive Forever rated stamp that features on my cover, with an "image of a fierce tiger mask adorned with green flowers to symbolise spring", in its own words. 

The other Forever stamp on the cover is the 2022 "Flag" issue, which began to circulate on 09JAN22 as a single auto-adhesive stamp available in quite a number of dispensing possibilities.