By Bill McAllister
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 19, 1999; Page N62

POSTAL officials are vowing to keep the old lick-and-stick stamps around, but their days are waning rapidly.

Nowhere is that change more dramatically seen than in the orders that the U.S. Postal Service placed for the new "Flag Over City" stamps that are expected to be the workhorse stamp of the new 33-cent rate.

Postal officials ordered 12.7 billion of the stamps in self-adhesive formats and only 1.4 billion of them in the old gummed, or, as they call it, "water-activated" varieties. That is barely 10 percent of the total and reinforces the belief among collectors that the public is stuck on self-adhesive stamps.

Stamp spokesman Barry Ziehl says the growth is not surprising. The agency's last public survey put 1997 sales of the self-adhesives at about 80 percent of all stamps. But that figure grew to about 90 percent last year, he said.

The new flag stamps will go on sale Thursday in Orlando and should be available in most post offices the next day.

Designed by Hiro Kimura of Brooklyn, N.Y., the new 33-cent flag features Old Glory fluttering in front of a stylized skyscraper. It features what Kimura said he imagined the United States was like as he grew up in Japan.

"This is the picture that I formed in my mind when I thought about the United States," he told postal officials.

His stamp is expected to replace the "flag over porch" stamp that served the same purpose for the 32-cent rate.

The new stamp is being issued in 11 formats, various sizes of booklets, sheets and rolls from two printers, one private and one public.

A self-adhesive 33-cent stamp featuring a flag on a classroom blackboard will go on sale March 13 in Cleveland.

USHERING in self-adhesive stamps at no extra charge was clearly one of the high points of Marvin T. Runyon's nearly six-year tenure as postmaster general. His relations with members of Congress were not as harmonious.

So, it was in marked contrast to Runyon that his successor, William J. Henderson, last summer allowed Irish American members of Congress to announce the Postal Service would issue a stamp honoring 150 years of Irish immigration to America. Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) announced the stamp on July 30, with a cheerleading Kennedy proclaiming "The luck of the Irish is with us."

Indeed, the Postal Service liked Kennedy's proclamation so much it used it again in its announcement that the stamp will be released Feb. 26 along with a similar stamp from Ireland in ceremonies at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

The 33-cent U.S. stamp and the 45-penny Irish stamp feature a painting by Dennis Lyall of Bridgeport, Conn., of a large 17th-century sailing ship entering a harbor, presumably Boston, where many of the immigrants landed. Ashton-Potter USA Ltd., an upstate New York printer, printed 40.4 million of the stamps, which require licking. They will be sold in sheets of 20.

IN 1993 Runyon created quite a stir at Postal Headquarters when he ordered a postage stamp to promote AIDS awareness.

Some stamp officials feared the public wouldn't use a stamp devoted to a dreaded disease, but Runyon's 29-cent stamp was proclaimed a success. Indeed, it became the first of a series of stamps for public health causes.

Now the public is being asked if it wants a second AIDS awareness stamp.

The 33-cent stamp would be one of 15 stamps being issued to commemorate the 1980s and the public is being allowed to vote this month on what subjects it wants memorialized on a sheet of 15 stamps.

Among the other topics under consideration: the fall of the Berlin Wall, country music, Cabbage Patch dolls, the movie "E.T.," compact discs, cable TV and aerobics.

In all there will be 30 subjects from which the public can select on postcard ballots available at most post offices or via the Internet at http://stampvote.msn.com.

Some, like the space shuttle and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, have been honored previously on stamps.

Balloting is by category with up to three votes allowed among the following subjects:

People & Events: Vladimir Horowitz concert, collapse of the Berlin Wall, Arms Reduction Treaty, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, American Hostages Freed in Iran.

Arts & Entertainment: "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," hip-hop culture, country music, the book "The Bonfire of the Vanities," the musical "Cats," and television's "The Cosby Show."

Sports: NCAA March Madness basketball games, figure skating, Senior PGA Golf tour, the Lakers vs. Celtics basketball series, San Francisco 49ers football team, beach volleyball.

Science & Technology: personal computers, AIDS awareness, space shuttle program, compact discs, cable TV, gene mapping.

Lifestyle: video games, aerobics, minivans, mountain biking, Cabbage Patch dolls, camcorders, television talk shows.

THE LAUREL Maryland Stampfair will be held Sunday from 9:30 to 5 at the Best Western Maryland Inn, 15105 Sweitzer Rd., Laurel. Admission is free. For information, call 301/776-5300.

INDIVIDUALS seeking first-day cancellations of the Flag Over City or Irish Immigration stamps should purchase the stamps at their local post office and place them on addressed envelopes. These should be mailed in a larger envelope to either: Flag Over City Stamps, Postmaster, P.O. Box 629998, Orlando, FL 32862-9991 or Irish Immigration Stamp, Postmaster, 25 Dorchester Ave., Boston, MA 02205-9991. Requests should be postmarked by March 25 and March 27, respectively.

Next week in this space: Photography columnist Frank Van Riper on a child's eye view of a wedding.