'Jenny' Has Her Ups and Downs

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin when a petri dish accidentally became contaminated in his lab.

Christopher Columbus discovered America when he took a wrong turn on the way to India.

And the Postal Service commemorated the first regular airmail service with a stamp misprint.

In 1918, U.S. Army pilots flew the route, which went from New York City to Philadelphia to Washington DC, and to mark the occasion — and to help cover the cost of moving mail by air — a special 24-cent stamp was issued. The stamp featured an image of the biplane used to carry the mail: a Curtiss JN-4H, also known as the “Jenny.”

There was just one problem. When the stamps were printed, some of them showed the plane upside down.

The stamps had been rushed into production to be issued May 14, the day before the airmail service began. And because the design required two colors, sheets were placed on the printing press twice — a process that made human error seem almost inevitable.

Stamp Collector William Robey knew this was a possibility. He went to a Post Office in Washington DC and purchased a 100-stamp sheet of “Inverted Jennys.” He became the owner of the only misprinted stamp sheet to fall into the public’s hands. Days later, he sold it to a Philadelphia stamp dealer, who resold it to another collector. The stamps were eventually broken into blocks and singles — and a legend was born.

For nearly a century, stamp collectors have chased the Inverted Jennys and have accounted for nearly all 100 of them. This error has resulted in the nation’s most publicized rarest collectable. One of the remaining originals sold at auction in 2007 for $977,500.

Now collectors can purchase a Souvenir Sheet featuring a new version. Reprinted with a $2 denomination to make them easily distinguishable from the 24-cent originals, the six Inverted Jennys on this sheet commemorate the many ways a single stamp can turn a moment in history upside down.

Perhaps the stamps will take your breath away, the way the original stamps did when a stamp collector purchased them from an unknowing postal clerk in 1918. Perhaps they’ll inspire you to take up stamp collecting, or use them for mailing. Whatever the reason, let the Inverted Jenny serve as a reminder that sometimes gaffes can become gifts.