Customers poured out of the doors of some of Hawai'i's busiest post offices yesterday as they stood in line to buy 2-cent stamps to keep up with the cost of mailing a first-class letter.

Karoline Shih of Kahala waited 20 minutes at the Kahala post office just to spend 40 cents for 20, 2-cent stamps.

"What a waste of time," Shih said.

The price of a first-class stamp went from 37 cents to 39 cents on Sunday, causing a run on 2-cent stamps that emptied stamp dispensing machines over the weekend. The result was a Monday morning bottleneck that dragged on all day inside the lobbies of Hawai'i's most harried post offices.

With some machines out of 2-cent stamps, postal customers said they stood in line anywhere from two minutes to 30 minutes to buy either 2-cent stamps or the new 39-cent stamps at the counter.

"There's a buying frenzy out there," said Duke Gonzales, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service's Hawai'i district. One woman at the Ala Moana post office yesterday told a postal employee she needed 18 sheets worth of 2-cent stamps — or 720 stamps, Gonzales said.

"Obviously she's not going to send out 720 letters tonight," Gonzales said. "And it's not like the price is going to go up 3 cents if she waits another day. ... People are buying much more than they appear to be needing. On Friday I said that we should be OK, barring any unforeseen circumstances. Well, we're seeing that freaky circumstance that I thought was not going to occur."

As fast as a postal technician could fill up the stamp-dispensing machine at the Ala Moana post office yesterday, customers continued to empty it of sheets of 40, 2-cent stamps,

The technician had to return to the Ala Moana post office three times yesterday before 2 p.m.

The problem wasn't limited to stamp machines.

Gonzales' mother-in-law asked him to pick up 39-cent stamps yesterday at the main airport post office where he works. But Gonzales checked the lines at least half-a-dozen times and decided to buy his mother-in-law's stamps another day.

"The lines are obviously long," Gonzales said.

The 39-cent stamps also are available at several Hawai'i retailers, including 7-Eleven, Longs Drug Stores, Foodland Super Market, Safeway, Star Markets and Times Super Market, Gonzales said. But the retailers do not carry 2-cent stamps, he said.

At the Makiki post office Saturday, a man showed up with a plastic shopping bag half filled with sheets of 40, 2-cent stamps. He told the Makiki postal manager that he had just cleaned out the Ala Moana machine and wanted to buy more from the Makiki machine, Gonzales said.

When the postal manager said the Makiki machine was empty and he would have to wait in line to buy stamps at the counter, the man left, apparently headed for another post office.

"He had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of 2-cent stamps," Gonzales said. "I just don't understand what's going on out there."

Like several other would-be postal customers at the Kahala, Makiki and Ala Moana post offices, Richard Harris refused to stand in line just for stamps.

Harris, a carpenter from Kaimuki, took yesterday off to run errands, which included buying a 2-cent stamp to mail in his state income taxes.

"This is ridiculous," Harris said outside the Kahala post office. "I refuse to wait in that line. I guess the state will just have to wait to get my taxes."

Fred Miyoshi, a retired Pearl Harbor shipyard worker from Kaimuki, got within steps of the crowd of people but decided to turn around and return some other day.

"I ain't gonna wait," Miyoshi said. "With a long line like this, I just ain't gonna do it."

But Trina Nitta finally emerged with the object of so many people's desires yesterday: 80, 39-cent stamps and 80, 2-cent stamps — at a cost of $32.80.

"This is crazy," Nitta said. "But I got 'em."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.