Catherine Choy stood in a line awaiting the postal cancellation stamp, purchases she has been making each of the 12 years that Lee's stamps have been released, each bearing the image of an animal from the Chinese zodiac. They're a legacy for her kids, she said.

"I'm not a strong stamp collector," Choy said, glancing around the ballroom foyer, where many others were feverishly pasting the little stamps onto collectible envelopes called "first-day covers," to be commemoratively postmarked.

Members of the Chinese Lion Dance Association perform a dragon dance at the first-day issue of a Chinese New Year tstamp souvenir sheet in ceremonies at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

The lines were forming at 8 a.m. when Nancy Wong, postal service retail manager, arrived for setup. The 1,000 programs printed with a special digital color postmark had all been handed out by 10:30, she said, a half-hour before the lion dancers ceremonially launched the proceedings.

The main event was the sale of the souvenir sheets, double-sided sets of all 12 stamp designs, 24 stamps in all.

The sheets had to be doubled up, said national postal public affairs spokesman Azeezaly Jaffer, because at 37 cents a pop, a sheet of 12 would be priced at $4.44. Four, he reminded a crowd that hardly needed reminding, is an unlucky number for Chinese. Double that sum — $8.88 — and you have a string of numbers the superstitious find very lucky indeed.

The collectors tried to make the most of good fortune, meanwhile. Dennis Burke, a San Francisco software salesman and sometime collector, had designed his own covers and was putting together 50 to be postmarked. These he'd use mainly as a commodity for trades, or to send to his wife's family in China, where the stamp market is hot.

Here in Honolulu, said philatelist Paul Edney, the craze peaked decades ago.

"It's a dying hobby," he admitted. "It's just us old folks left, and when they die off, that's it."

Designer Lee, however, recalled that the initial purpose for the series was to pay tribute to the virtues his immigrant forebears brought to America and that remembering this may be the wisest course.

"We need to honor these ancestors ... it's to them that I believe these stamps should be dedicated," he said.