2017-01-04 Wed

The Position 79 1918 24¢ Inverted Jenny airmail has resurfaced after 99 long years and is being offered for sale by Leslie Hindman Auctioneers in Chicago on 15th February. The Philatelic Foundation has authenticated the stamp. An anonymous family has owned the stamp for generations and it has an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. Other rare stamps like a block of four U.S. 1901 4¢ Pan American Inverts (Scott 296a) and a single 2¢ invert stamp from the same Pan-American set will also be offered at the auction.

The 24¢ airmail stamp, popularly known as the Inverted Jenny is the most famous U.S. stamp with the central image of the “Jenny” biplane incorrectly printed upside down. A Washington, D.C., post office sold 100 error stamps in 1918 to collector William T. Robey who sold them to Eugene Klein, a Philadelphia stamp dealer. It was then sold to millionaire collector Col. E.H.R. Green and the sheets were torn into singles and blocks. Green kept some of the stamps and sold others. Collectors are trying to find the two missing stamps from the sheet.

Position 49 and Position 79 stamps had no records, until now.