Olympic Opening Ceremony postage stamps fly off electronic shelves

An Olympic stamp (Photo credit: Xinhua)

(BEIJING, August 9) -- The Beijing Postal Service recently released a series of Opening Ceremony postage stamps available for sale online and in Beijing post offices. Sales started in Beijing post offices at 9:00 p.m. on August 7, with long lines of locals eager to purchase the new stamps.

The 'Water Cube' envelope (Photo credit: Xinhua)

The second phase of the sales was conducted online and began at midnight on August 8 on 33 different websites. All sites were sold out of the commemorative stamps two hours later, at 2:00 a.m. on August 8. Shocked by how fast the stamps sold, the Beijing Postal Service arranged a third phase of online sales to start at 8:00 a.m. on August 8 at only 22 websites. Sales ended at 12:00 p.m. on August 8 after having sold stamps to 400,000 different customers.

To ensure that all stamps were sold in a safe and legal manner, police and post office officials kept watch over the web during sales periods.

An old man examines the new Olympic envelope. (Photo credit: Xinhua)