Inverted Jenny
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008Did you know that 90 years ago, the United States Post Office issued a postage stamp with a picture of the Curtiss Jenny airplane.
The only problem was that the Jenny was printed upside down.
It turned out that the printing process in 1918 was tedious and error-prone, and at least three of the stamp sheets were printed inverted. They were subsequently destroyed, but one slipped past unnoticed and was sold in a post office.
A collector by the name of W. T. Robey happened to chance upon the misprinted sheet, quickly bought the sheet, and resold it at a higher price. Since then enterprising collectors sold the stamps in blocks of fours, eights, and individuals to achieve higher profits, and the price of the inverted stamps shot up.
Misprinted stamps are highly sought after in the philatelic world as they are rare. It is believed that the inverted Jenny is one of the most prized in the philatelic world due to the fact that only 100 of such stamps were ever found. A single inverted Jenny can cost up to US$977,500.
[source: Wikipedia]
