The most famous postage stamp error in history happened 100 years ago today. You may have seen the Inverted Jenny joked about on The Simpsons or in movies, but the stamp with the upside-down biplane is actually a real thing. Several things, in fact, as a sheet of 100 misprints got distributed throughout the world at the dawn of aviation.
In May of 1918, the United States Post Office was about to inaugurate its very first air mail service, using first-generation Curtiss Jenny aircraft to fly between Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. The post office issued a special series of stamps, featuring the Jenny, to commemorate the service. The 24-cent postage was considered an outrageous price to mail a letter because, at that time, a first-class stamp cost a mere three cents. In the excitement of the event, and in a rush to get the stamps released ahead of the inaugural flight, the post office’s printing service accidentally pressed an inverted set of stamps which escaped detection.
Within a week, the sheet of inverts was sold to a stamp dealer for $15,000, the equivalent of $270,000 today! Over the next century, the stamps have been sold, swapped, and stolen, but all of the 100 misprints have been accounted for, either in private possession or in museums, except one. In 2016, a single Inverted Jenny sold at auction for $1,351,250. That’s one expensive plane ticket!
Have you ever seen the Inverted Jenny?