Year of the Rabbit Stamps Celebrates Lunar New Year Forever First Class Postage Stamps

The Year of the Rabbit stamp belongs to the Postal Service's current Lunar New Year series, where each animal appears as a decorated three-dimensional mask rather than as the animal itself. The rabbit's ears rise into the frame above a face patterned with motifs drawn from Asian textiles. The selvage around the pane carries line drawings of all twelve zodiac animals, with the rabbit marked, so the sheet doubles as a chart of the cycle. The Postal Service has issued Lunar New Year stamps for more than three decades, and they remain among its most successful releases.

Lunar New Year mail runs on a tight calendar - red envelopes, cards and invitations all move in the two or three weeks before the date, which shifts each year between late January and mid-February. Buyers order in quantity because the list is long and the window is short. Sheets of 20. Rabbit years run on the same twelve-year cycle, so the next one falls in 2035.