Rare 1918 US stamp with ‘Inverted Jenny’ plane error sold for record-breaking $2 million

New York, United States

A rare US postage stamp was auctioned for a record $2 million in New Yorkto Charles Hack, a 76-year-old stamp collector who is now a proud owner of the famous red, white and blue “Inverted Jenny” stamp which dates back to 1918.

The stamp features an inverted image of a plane, the result of a printing error. 

‘Holy grail of postage’

The real estate developer made the monumental purchase on Wednesday (Nov 8) of the stamp which originally cost only 24 cents. Hack told the Washington Post that he had been eyeing the coveted stamp since he was a child and called it the “holy grail of postage”. 

'Inverted Jenny' features a blue upside-down Curtiss JN-4 aeroplane on a red and white background which dominated postage stamp culture at the time.

It was a misprint of a stamp created in 1918 to commemorate the beginning of regular airmail service in the US. 

Image shows rare United States postage stamp 'Inverted Jenny'. (Photo credit: Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries)

The printers only created 100 of those inverted stamps before destroying the misprinted sheet, making the surviving stamps incredibly valuable and sought-after by collectors across the world. 

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“The error occurred either when an inverted carmine frame sheet was fed into the small hand press for the second impression or when the plate printer, after inking and wiping, placed an inverted blue vignette plate into the press,” said Smithsonian’s national postal museum. 

Hack is also owner of a few other Inverted Jennys, he told the Washington Post. He bought one in the early 2000s for about $300,000. 

In 2007, he bought another, better-quality stamp for around $1 million which was the 57th stamp printed in the original sheet of 100 stamps. 

But this time around, Hack managed to buy number 49 on the sheet of 100 stamps which was reportedly bought by a financial clerk named William Robey before the postal officials could destroy the misprinted sheet. 

The number 49 had not been seen for a century since its original purchase in 1918 as it was held in a bank vault by its owner and his descendants before it was sold in 2018. 

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Appearance on The Simpsons

The highly coveted stamp was also featured in a 1993 episode of the long-running American animated show The Simpsons. In the episode, Homer Simpson is seen looking at a sheet of Inverted Jennys during a yard sale. 

“The airplane’s upside down,” he says unaware of the stamp’s value before calling it “junk” and tossing it into a pile of “trash” that includes other priceless American artefacts including the Declaration of Independence and a multimillion-dollar Stradivarius violin.

(With inputs from agencies)