RALEIGH, NC — U.S. Postal Service officials will hold a special stamp dedication at the upcoming Chinese New Year festival in Raleigh. The recently released Year of the Rooster Forever stamp was released earlier this month as part of the Celebrating Lunar New Year series and will be officially dedicated in North Carolina to kick off the festival. Raleigh Postmaster Linda Jones will be the dedicating official at the event.

About the Stamp: Celebrating Lunar New Year: Year of the Rooster

The Postal Service introduced the Celebrating Lunar New Year series in 2008 and will continue the series through 2019 with stamps for the Years of the Dog and Boar. This is the second series honoring Lunar New Year.  The first ran in 1992 to 2007. Year of the Rooster is being issued as a souvenir sheet of 12 self-adhesive Forever stamps. The public is asked to share the news of the stamp using the hashtag #LunarNewYear.

Art director Ethel Kessler worked on the series with illustrator Kam Mak, a Hong Kong-born artist who grew up in New York City’s Chinatown and now lives in Brooklyn. The artwork focuses on some of the common ways the Lunar New Year holiday is celebrated. For the Year of the Rooster, the illustration — originally created using oil paints on panel — depicts a colorful rooster emblazoned on a red envelope. The color red symbolizes luck in Chinese culture, while rooster imagery is often used to ward off evil spirits. The characters at the top of the envelope form a common Chinese greeting of celebration and wish for prosperity and good fortune, used most frequently during Lunar New Year.

Kessler’s stamp design also incorporates two elements from the previous series of Lunar New Year stamps: Clarence Lee’s intricate cut-paper design of a rooster and the Chinese character for “rooster,” drawn in grass-style calligraphy by Lau Bun.

Customers may purchase the Year of the Rooster Forever stamp at usps.com/stamps, at the Postal Store usps.com/shop, by calling 800-STAMP24 (800-782-6724) and at Post Offices nationwide. A variety of stamps and collectibles also is available at ebay.com/stamps.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

###

Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at about.usps.com/news/welcome.htm.

For reporters interested in speaking with a regional Postal Service public relations professional, please go to about.usps.com/news/media-contacts/usps-local-media-contacts.pdf. Follow us on Twitter (twitter.com/usps), Instagram (instagram.com/uspostalservice), Pinterest (pinterest.com/uspsstamps), LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/usps), subscribe to our channel on YouTube (youtube.com/usps), like us on Facebook (facebook.com/usps) and view our Postal Postsblog (uspsblog.com).

For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and usps.com/postalfacts.