Existing comment:
"... my heart stood still. It was the sheet of inverts. It was what you might call 'a thrill that comes once in a lifetime.' "
-- William T. Robey
Where Was the Error Discovered?
On May 15, 1918, stamp collector William T. Robey went to a Washington DC post office to buy the new airmail stamps. He knew that on the first sale day of a bicolored stamp, chances of an error were good. After spotting inverted images on a sheet of 100 stamps, he immediately bought it.
Robey sold the sheet to stamp dealer Eugene Klein for $15,000. Today a single inverted Jenny sells for many times that amount. Klein sold the sheet to collector Colonel EHR Green, who had it broken into blocks and singles.
There were 100 Inverted Jenny stamps on the sheet that Willaim T Robey brought. Here's what happened to some of them:
* In the 1980s a maid accidentally swept up one Inverted Jenny in a vacuum cleaner. Although damaged, the stamp survived.
* In 1955 and 1977 thieves tried to disguise a block of four Inverted Jennys and a single. As a result, the block of stamps was separated.
* In 2005 stamp collector William H. Gross traded the Inverted Jenny plate block with Mystic Stamp Company in exchange for the rare US 1-cent Z grill stamp. |