Recently I received legitimate business correspondence from a person in Poland who used the postage stamp shown here . To me, an ignorant American, it appears to depict the Unknown Comic but obviously that cannot be correct. So what does it mean? Please explain this stamp to me.
I can’t help ya’, but you might be interested to know I recently got a letter from Lesotho with a Mean Jean the Dancin’ Machine postmark.
–Cliffy
It’s from a series of stamps depicting zodiac signs. Yours is the capricorn.
Hmm, I guess you won’t believe me without a cite, eh? :smack:
Look here.
Koziorozec is Polish for Capricorn.
A series of stamps featured the signs of the zodiac:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=47168&item=5660586659
The artwork is visible if you enlarge it.
I can identify Taurus, Pisces, Cancer and others from the pictures, so the question is- what does this picture have to do with Capricorn the Goat?
Oh man, and I was just working up a conspiracy theory explaining the stamp as a tacit acknowledgement of the role CIA assassin/spy Chuck Barris had in digging up the goods on Gen. Jaruzelski & co. in order to protect the fledgling Solidarity movement, which grew into a popular groundswell for democratic reform and kicking out the Russkies.
Bummer.
All 12 stamps:
1 Woman Virgo
2 ?Archer Sagittarius
3 Bull Taurus
4 ? Capricorn
5 Ram Aries
6 Buckets Aquarius
7 Crab Cancer
8 Door Gemini
9 Fish Pisces
10 Lion Leo
11 Scales Libra
12 Woman Scorpio
All the others are fairly obvious.
I still cannot figure what the office worker is doing being Capricorn.
Is there a polish saying like ‘playing the goat’ ?
Looking more carefully at the original posting of the stamp, you can see goat’s horns behind the paper.
There must be some connection in Polish culture that explains this!
Wow! Mystery solved in less than an hour. You guys are great. My thanks to all!
That’s not the Unknown Comic, that’s our own Uncle Cecil!
It looks more like Capricorn the Lawyer to me.
Sorry, I don’t understand.
I guess he means that (sans horns) the “person” in the picture looks rather more like a lawyer than a goat.
I kind of understand that- in my offline list of stamp features I had this as office worker.
However, the sign of Capricorn is the Goat. I wondered whether the poster was referring to some association between Capricorn and lawyers, beyond the google-fact that Capricornians are likely to be Lawyers and Doctors and Administrators.
It’s just being playful. Look at the other stamps. For example, the Rak (Crab/Cancer) is a crab sitting in an armchair with a flower in the claw. What does that have to do with the zodiac sign? I don’t know much about astrology, but I do know Cancers are kind of romantic homebodies. Capricorns are supposed to be ambitious and practical/conservative types. Maybe the stamps are reflecting this–that’s my best guess.
Office worker was my second impression. Lawyer was my first impression because his posture came off as rather confident, and the piece of paper made me think of a legal brief.
You don’t think they’d publish a stamp commemorating it without a good cover story, do you? Those who are “in the know” appreciate the stamp for its true meaning.
Are Capricorns supposed to be shy or introverted or anything like that? This is what the paper bag suggests to me.
Also, would I be horribly off-target if I guessed that Scorpios are supposed to be passionate? 
That was my first thought too. Perhaps there’s a similar phrase in Polish. As a child I remember being told off myself once for “playing the goat” when I wandered around with a paper bag over my head.