A famous philatelic invert error is up for auction this month. The 1901 commemorative stamp could make as much as $15,000.
The United States 1901 Ic Pan-American invert is one of the most well-known mistakes in American postal history.
A very good example is for sale at Daniel F Kelleher Auctions at their January 21st – 23rd sale. You’ll need $5,000 to place the opening bid, and the item is predicted to realise as much as $15,000.
Kelleher says the stamp is: “incredibly fresh and sound, without the usual bends, tears and other faults normally encountered — plus rarely seen superior centering.”
The 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York State is now most often remembered as the location of the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6.
A contemporary news illustration recreates the moment when anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot President William McKinley in the Temple of Music at the Exposition.
With no inkling of the tragedy ahead, the event, a gigantic trades fair, was celebrated by the US Post Office with a commemorative stamp issue.
The series of six stamps – 1c, 2c, 4c, 5c, 8c and 10c – showcased the latest transport tech.
The 1c, in green, celebrated “fast lake navigation” courtesy of speedy steam ships.
The stamps were issued on May 1, the opening day of the Expo.
They were printed in a two-stage process, a coloured frame surrounding a black-and-white photographic image.
A small number of 1c and 2c stamps were misaligned in the second part of the printing process and issued as these inverts.
Some 4c stamps were also deliberately inverted during the investigation into the errors, but were never released – though they did spark a corruption investigation when an assistant post master gave copies away to friends.
Inverts of this type are extremely popular with stamp collectors.
Not only are they extreme rarities, they are visually arresting and interesting rarities. Most inverted stamps produced in a single print can only be identified as errors through barely visible watermarks.
The most famous American rarity of all, The Inverted Jenny, gave us the timeless upside-down plane thanks to a repeat of this error.
The Pan-American stamps inspired William Robey, the man who found the 100 Jennys, to look out for the first US airmail issue in 1918.
In a famous letter, he wrote to a fellow collector: “It might interest you to know that there are two parts to the design, one an insert into the other, like the Pan-American issues. I think it would pay to be on the lookout for inverts on account of this.”
Jennys, of which there are 100 copies, are now selling for millions of dollars.
A full set of the commemorative stamps released to celebrate the Pan-American Exposition of 1901.
The Pan-American invert can also reach very high prices.
In 2009 a set of all three inverts made $199,000 at auction, with the 1c reaching $19,000. A set of blocks of four of each of them made a total of $1,146,000 in the same sale.
This stamp has a catalogue value of $11,500, and will undoubtedly attract buyers.
