2019-01-29 Tue

40 million Lennon stamps in 2.5 million panes of 16 were issued on 7th September 2018. There have been several media reports which state that there are fully imperforate error panes of these stamps in the market. Experts have noted that perforations or die cuts made to separate each stamp are not present in these stamp panes.

The normal Lennon panes have die cuts to separate the 16 stamps. There’s a thin margin between each stamp as well. However, these elements are absent on the error panes. The USPS had been officially selling uncut press sheets of commemorative stamps, like the ones from Music Icons series, until 2016. The John Lennon forever stamps belong to the same series but since they were issued in 2018, all the official panes had die cuts. The Lennon panes without die cuts can be termed as errors, as they were produced unintentionally. Some of these error panes were even purchased by collectors and expert philatelists.

Banknote Corporation of America printed and processed these Lennon stamps using lithography. Gradient rainbow colours are applied from top to bottom, resulting in four different colour varieties.

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