US stamp sells for a record-breaking $2m

[Valentine Mark Herman]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67409534

A rare US postage stamp has sold for $2m (£1.63m) in a New York auction, setting the record for the most expensive single US stamp sold.

The famous red, white and blue "Inverted Jenny" stamp dates back to 1918 and originally cost 24 cents.

Its fame is tied to both its rarity - only 100 were printed at the time - and also because the plane it depicts is printed in error upside down.

The Inverted Jenny stamp was part of a collection made to mark the start of regular airmail service.

It features an image of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the center, though it is printed upside down in error. Only 100 of those inverted stamps were sold to the public, and they have since become highly coveted by stamp collectors globally.

[Zack]

Umberto Eco would have had a field day writing a novel about this stamp

[Bradford]

Yes, and he will safeguard the best one in a vault, out of light, as it has been stored for so long already; hence the great color it retains.  The sheet was purchased by Colonel Green for $20,000 (to pick up the trail) as it was announced in a New York City newspaper a week after Robey's discovery at the post office counter.  He was the son of the Witch of Wall Street, Hetty Green.  When the "Colonel" was a kid, he received a leg injury, but the multi-millionairess mother of his refused to pay a doctor and took him from free clinic to free clinic trying to find a doctor to treat him.  By the time she was done traipsing her son around, it was determined the half the leg needed to be amputated.  So much for having more money than sense (or compassion).

Hetty Green died 2 years before this first airmail stamp was issued (Scott catalog #C3a, 3rd highest denomination of first set).  She left her son well over $100 million in liquid assets and there was plenty more invested (easily $3 Billion in today's dollars).  Needless to say, anything Col. Green wanted, he could afford.

There are entire books written about the 100 Jenny Inverts, their owners, tales and mishaps like the missing one that had gotten sucked up in a vacuum cleaner and retrieved from the dusty bag back in the 1930s, I believe.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Thanks Bradford. The guy who bought this one for a record price apparently has two or three others that he bought earlier for a lot less money.

[Bradford]

From the cover of the auction catalog:

[Carmela Rizzuto]

Thanks for the news Val and Bradford!

[Bradford]

Yes, I have the PDF version of this catalog.  Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, Inc., is the premier auctioneer of US stamps in the world.  The original sheet was purchased by an accountant on the first day of sale in 1918.  He sold it for $10,000 (face value was $24) then that dealer flipped it for $15,000.

The stamp that sold is the best condition example of the 100 in the sheet, hence the high realization:

$1,700,000 Hammer price + 18% commission = $2,006,000 US.