2013 stamp will celebrate Year of the Snake
It's been a busy week for the U.S. Postal Service. The agency in the midst of the frantic holiday season - a time in which it expects to deliver more than 18 billion cards and letters while also dealing with a 20 percent increase in the expected volume of holiday packages being shipped. Not only is the USPS swamped with work, but its released a string of stamps that are set for issue in 2013. On the other side of the shipping equation, overwhelmed mail senders can use address verification software to ease anxiety about delivery.
The fourth 2013 stamp to be debuted by the USPS is the Year of the Snake stamp, which is the sixth installment in the Celebrating Lunar New Year Series. Officially, the Year of the Snake begins on February 10, 2013 and will last until January 30, 2014. Previous issues of the stamp celebrated the Year of the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit and Dragon.
The stamp features a bundle of firecrackers traditionally lit in celebration of the new lunar year in some cultures, as well as an intricate paper-cut design of a snake and the Chinese character for snake drawn in the aptly-named grass-style calligraphy.
The Year of the Snake edition will be issued as a Forever stamp in sheets of 12.