Set Description:
Started this set 17 June 2006!
LEGEND
According to Chinese legend, the twelve animals quarreled one day as to who was to head the cycle of years. The gods were asked to decide and they held a contest: whoever was to reach the opposite bank of the river would be first, and the rest of the animals would receive their years according to their finish.
All the animals gathered at the river bank and jumped in. Unknown to the ox, the rat had jumped upon his back. As the ox was about to jump ashore, the rat jumped off the ox's back, and won the race. The pig, who was very lazy, ended up last. That is why the rat is the first year of the animal cycle, the ox second, and the pig last.
2007: The Year of the PIG:
The twelfth animal who arrived was the meticulous and resigned Pig.
Positive: The PIG can be sensible, sensual and sensitive, sweetly naive, caring, self-sacrificing, erudite, talented, open-hande, candid, outgoing, amusing, charitable, obliging, graciously hospitable and virtuous.
Negative: The PIG can also be hot-tempered, pessimistic, outrageously epicurean, earthy to a fault, sardonic, snobbish, snide, authoritarian, competitive, know-it-all, stingy, victimized and sometimes downright mad at the world.
2009: NGC started to add the colorized version of the coin to this set.
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