Email, online bill payment systems and other advances in technology are choking the US Postal service. Even the E-file system of the IRS has significant impact on stamp sales. What's a postal service to do? How about some innovation. On the heels of it's sellout "scratch n' sniff" floral stamps the New Zealand Post has introduced "Action Replay" stamps. Lenticular printing is used to present multiple images of historic New Zealand Olympic glory. From the website:

The effect of movement is created through a special printing process called Lenticular. This effect is achieved by two or more images being printed together, or 'inter-laced', into each other. These are printed around the wrong way on the back of a special lens material. Due to the optics in the lens, your eye is forced to see only a very small area of the lens at a certain angle. So, when you tilt the stamp, the images in the stamp appear to move.

Cooler stamps might not increase the volume of mail but it would create remarkably huge sales to collectors. Of course stamps that are sold and not used are the most profitable.

Check out this gallery to see the stamps.

Update: See More Postage Stamp Innovation

[via Boing Boing]