Inverted Jenny facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Inverted Jenny

Country of production	United States
Date of production	May 10, 1918 (1918-05-10)
Depicts	Curtiss JN-4
Nature of rarity	Invert error
No. in existence	100
Face value	24 US¢
Estimated value	US $1,593,000

The Inverted Jenny is a very famous United States postage stamp from 1918. It is special because the picture of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the middle is printed upside down! This makes it one of the most well-known printing mistakes in stamp collecting.

Only one sheet of 100 of these upside-down stamps was ever found. This makes them incredibly rare and valuable to stamp collectors. A single Inverted Jenny stamp can sell for a lot of money. For example, in 2018, one stamp sold for over $1.5 million! Even a group of four Inverted Jennys sold for $2.7 million in 2005.

How the Inverted Jenny Came to Be

Starting Airmail Service

In the 1910s, the United States Postal Service started trying out new ways to deliver mail by air. They decided to begin regular airmail service on May 15, 1918. This new service would fly mail between Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New York City.

The cost for this new airmail service was 24 cents, which was much more expensive than the usual 3 cents for regular mail. Because of the higher price, the Post Office decided to make a brand new stamp just for airmail. This stamp was printed in red and blue and showed a special Curtiss Jenny JN-4HM biplane. This plane was changed to carry mailbags instead of a second pilot.

A Rush to Print

The Post Office was in a big hurry to design and print the new stamp. The work started on May 4, and printing began on May 10. Stamps were printed in sheets of 100.

Because the stamp had two colors (red and blue), each sheet had to go through the printing press twice. This process could easily lead to mistakes. In fact, some misprinted sheets were found and destroyed during production. But one sheet of 100 stamps with the airplane printed upside down somehow got through without anyone noticing!

How the Mistake Happened

For a long time, people thought the blue airplane was printed first, and then the red frame was printed upside down. But it was actually the other way around! The red frames were printed first. Then, when the sheets were put back into the press for the blue airplane, a sheet was placed upside down. Or, the printing plate for the planes might have been put into the press upside down. Either way, the result was an upside-down airplane!

Finding the Rare Stamps

William Robey's Discovery

Many stamp collectors knew that printing errors could happen. So, they went to their local post offices to buy the new airmail stamps and look for mistakes.

A collector named William T. Robey was one of these people. On May 14, 1918, he went to the post office. When the clerk showed him a sheet of the new stamps, Robey saw that the airplanes were upside down! He bought the whole sheet of 100 stamps. The postal clerk who sold them didn't even notice the error because he had never seen an airplane before!

Selling the Sheet

After finding the stamps, Robey contacted stamp dealers and reporters. Postal inspectors even tried to buy the sheet back from him. After a week, Robey sold the entire sheet to a famous stamp dealer named Eugene Klein for $15,000.

Klein then sold the entire sheet to a collector named "Colonel" Edward Howland Robinson Green for $20,000. Green decided to break up the sheet. He kept 41 stamps for his own collection and sold the rest through Klein. He even put one stamp in a special locket for his wife!

Missing and Damaged Stamps

Over the years, some of the Inverted Jenny stamps have been lost or damaged. For example, one stamp was accidentally sucked into a vacuum cleaner! Another one was mailed by Green's wife and is the only one that has been used (cancelled).

To keep track of them, Eugene Klein lightly wrote a number on the back of each stamp. This number showed its original spot on the sheet of 100.

Why the Inverted Jenny is So Famous

Benjamin Miller's Stolen Stamp

The Inverted Jenny is famous not just for its error, but also for its interesting history. A collector named Benjamin Kurtz Miller bought 10 of these stamps early on. One of his Inverted Jennys was taken in 1977. It was found years later, but sadly, parts of it had been cut off to make it harder to recognize.

This stolen stamp was a big deal. It was even the main attraction at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum's 'Rarity Revealed' exhibit. Many visitors wanted to see it!

The Missing Block of Four

In 1955, an even more amazing group of four Inverted Jennys was taken from a stamp show. These stamps belonged to a collector named Ethel Bergstresser McCoy. This group was special because it had a red line running through the middle.

The top right stamp from this group has never been found. The two stamps on the left side were found in the 1970s, but they had also been changed to hide their identity. In 2014, a stamp company offered a $100,000 reward for the missing stamps.

In 2016, a third stamp from the stolen McCoy block was found! A young man in Britain said he inherited it from his grandfather. After an investigation, the stamp will go back to its rightful owner, the American Philatelic Research Library. Only one stamp from that famous block, position 66, is still missing.

Recent Sales

The Inverted Jenny continues to be a hot topic. In 2019, a musician sold five very valuable stamps, including an Inverted Jenny, for $1.9 million. The most recent sale was in March 2020, when another Inverted Jenny was sold to a collector in Florida.

Because the Inverted Jenny is so well-known, every time one is sold, it's usually reported publicly.

A Special Stamp Trade

The Unique Plate Block

At an auction in 1944, a very special group of eight Inverted Jennys was sold. This group was unique because it included the "plate number block," which shows the printing plate number.

Later, in 2005, a group of four of these stamps was bought by a collector named Bill Gross for almost $3 million!

Trading for Another Rarity

What Bill Gross did next was even more amazing. He traded his Inverted Jenny block with Donald Sundman, the president of the Mystic Stamp Company. In exchange, Gross received one of only two known examples of the USA 1c Z Grill stamp. By making this trade, Bill Gross became the owner of the only complete collection of U.S. 19th-century stamps!

A Fake Inverted Jenny

In 2006, election workers in Florida thought they found an Inverted Jenny on a voting envelope. But experts quickly looked at it and confirmed it was a fake! The colors were good, but the tiny holes around the edges (perforations) were wrong. This shows how important it is to check stamps carefully.

95th Anniversary Souvenir Sheet

In 2013, the United States Postal Service celebrated the Inverted Jenny's 95th anniversary. They released a special souvenir sheet with six pictures of the Inverted Jenny. These new stamps were worth $2 each, instead of the original 24 cents.

Finding a "Right-Side-Up" Jenny

The Postal Service did something tricky for this anniversary. They printed 2.2 million sheets with the plane upside down, just like the original. But they also secretly printed 100 "non-inverted Jenny" sheets, where the plane was flying right side up!

These sheets were wrapped so you couldn't see inside. If you bought one of the 100 right-side-up sheets, you would find a special note asking you to call a number to get a certificate. One of these rare right-side-up sheets sold for over $51,000 in 2014!

Later, the Postal Service's Inspector General said that creating these deliberate "errors" (the right-side-up ones) was not allowed by their rules. It turned out that not all 100 sheets were even given out to the public as planned.

A Recent Discovery

On September 6, 2018, exciting news came out! A new Inverted Jenny stamp was found that hadn't been seen since the original sheet was broken up in 1918. This was the long-missing stamp from position number 49 on the sheet. It was in perfect condition, never having been hinged in an album. In November 2018, this newly found stamp was sold at auction for a record-breaking $1,593,000!

In Pop Culture

The Inverted Jenny is so famous that it has even appeared in movies and TV shows! You might have seen it in the movie Brewster's Millions, or in an episode of The Simpsons called "Homer's Barbershop Quartet". It also showed up in the TV show For the People.

Images for kids

Benjamin K. Miller, whose Inverted Jenny stamp was taken in 1977
The Inverted Jenny plate block of four. This block was owned by shoe designer and collector Stuart Weitzman.
A fake Inverted Jenny stamp found on a ballot envelope.