See those stamps right there? With the upside down airplane? They just were auctioned off for almost 3 million dollars. Reeeeealllly cool story behind the stamps right here.
The 1918 stamp, known to collectors as the Jenny because of the Curtiss JN-4 biplane depicted in the design, was the first American issue for air postage. Its value was set at 24 cents.
But of roughly two million printed, 100 bore the topsy-turvy center plane and became known as the Inverted Jenny. They quickly became the stuff of philatelic legend.
More of the story of its increasing value:
A single sheet of 100 with the centers eye-catchingly inverted was sold at a Washington post office in 1918 to a sharp-eyed collector, who quickly resold the entire sheet to a dealer for $15,000. Within a few weeks, the stamps were separated, with most sold off individually for a few hundred dollars each. A few blocks of four were preserved, including the unique block auctioned yesterday, which shows part of the blue printing plate number inverted in the bottom margin. The so-called plate block changed hands in 1954 for $18,250 and was sold again privately in 1971 for an undisclosed sum. In 1989, Christie’s auctioned it for $1.1 million.
I know all of this is insane, they’re “just stamps” – but to my mind, that is a completely boring argument. Make it if you like, but just know that you’re kind of boring. I stand proudly with the obsessive FREAKS of the world who give a shite about weird things like inverted Jennys. I am not a stamp person, by any means – I know nothing about stamps … I just love people who are NUTS about random things like this.
I also love the pioneer spirit behind the design of that original stamp – meant to invoke the amazing beginning of airmail service (captured to romantic perfection in what has to be one of my favorite movies ever made: Only Angels Have Wings. Now there’s a movie where I just yearn to crawl through the television screen and join that world.)
I look at the “inverted Jenny” there on the stamp, and I think of that movie, and the dangerous (yet romantic) frontier world it depicted.
I love dichotemies. I love the obsessive, cool, neat nature of this stuff and would love to collect neat oddities such as this … if I had the money. It’s way down on my list.
However, I also think they’re just things and don’t put much value on them past that.
I remember when I went to the NY HIstorical Society exhibit they were having on Alexander Hamilton – and when I saw his actual desk – which was the first thing in the exhibit room that you saw – it just … I am telling you – waves of goosebumps went up my arms at the sight of it.
To see the actual THING – the real place where he sat and wrote – it just blew my mind.
These may be just things, but they are a part of history. They ARE history.
I have a fascination with Alexander Hamilton, but until I saw his actual desk – he didn’t seem really REAL to me.
I grew up with a book collector for a father, so I have a reverence for “things”, in general.
It’s difficult to explain. I am a huge history buff. And, I too, love Hamilton and Revoloution-era history. So, to say that I don’t value these things would be a lie. To say that I don’t understand the historical nature of these things would be a lie. But, at the same time, I do realize that they are just things. I mean, what they did is more important than what they did it on or with.
Unless of course, the item itself is the important thing (Declaration of Independence, cotton gin immediately come to mind).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I dig this stuff, but unless I had ridiculous amounts of dicretionary income, I would never think of spending money on them (and that goes for most collectible things … not necessarily valuable collectibles). However, I do think it’s important that our collective wealth go toward preserving this stuff. Which is why the Smithsonian Musuems are always a favorite stop whenever I’m in DC.
And to add (as your book collecting comment popped up as I previewed this): I guess is all just boils down to a matter of finances. I love books and own hundreds. Maybe thousands if I thow in the kid’s books. None of them are worth anything. Most are paperbacks. I just like having them.
But lack of money prevents me from having the library I’d like. So I’m content with borrowing from the library.
My grandfather claims to have an inverted Jenny in his stamp collection. OTOH, he also more and more claims it’s 1934 and he’s still the 17-year-old president of the Coney Island Motorcycle Club.
I dreamed about him last night, and that’s never happened before.
I’d be afraid I couldn’t take proper care of something like Hamilton’s desk, even if I could afford it.
It would be neat to run across a block of inverted Jenny stamps, though. Closest I ever got to something like that…well, for at least some of you, all I have to say is: “Willie McCovey, 1B, Washington Padres” and you’ll understand. :-)
In terms of my love of things, and my natural collector’s instinct – it’s probably a good thing I don’t have a lot of money, because if I did? I could conceivably end up with a warehouse full of STUFF – like the one at the end of Citizen Kane.
Thus puts to shame my Al Leiter rookie card, which had a picture of some other dude on it.
Out of 2 million printed only a single sheet of 100 made it out of the Post Office alive.
To me that’s the key to the value of this lot.. although $3million is a lot of stamps.. even for an iconic item like that.
It’s tangible evidence of human error [and therefore partcipation] at the heart of a mechanised process.. and those who operate that process, in any country, of any item, try their best to make sure that kind of thing doesn’t get out into the wild.
I like that, peteb.
The rarity itself obviously pushes up the value to collectors, Sheila.. but there’s a glee about an error among so many otherwise identical items, especially one that’s so obvious, that goes deeper than that simple calculation.
…hmmm, being in the printing business, I wonder if we should hold on to our mistakes for later sale at auction
…like the time I shipped 100,000 post cards of Kentucky spelt incorrectly. The T was replaced wth a Y…
“Kenyucky”
…funny, my distributor did not see it as an opportunity to sell a collectible item.