By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Sales of the U.S. Postal Service's "Year of the Dragon" stamp,
created by isle artist Clarence Lee, have been so hot, state
offices may run out next week.

‘Dragon’ sets stamp sales
afire, supplies low

Star-Bulletin staff

Post offices in Hawaii may run out of the "Year of the Dragon" stamps by Monday or Tuesday, spokeswoman Felice Broglio says.

Demand for the stamps, designed by local artist Clarence Lee, was "extremely brisk" on the first day of sales yesterday.

One clerk said many customers were buying 10 to 20 sheets at a time. Post offices in Waikiki, downtown and Kahala ran out of stamps yesterday and had to get more stamps from other post offices.

The dragon is the eighth in a series of stamps depicting the signs of the Chinese zodiac. They are released to mark the Lunar New Year.

"Each year more people are jumping on the bandwagon to start collecting them," Broglio said.

The Postal Service's Hawaii district, which includes Guam and American Samoa, ordered 900,000 of the dragon stamps, up from 740,000 last year.

Altogether, the post office printed 54 million of the stamps.

The post office here will try to obtain additional dragon stamps from other districts on the mainland.

But Broglio said another way to get dragon stamps is to order them over the phone at 1-800-STAMP24. The postal service also sells tamps online at http://www.stampsonline.com