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The job of designing and printing the new stamp was carried out in a great rush engraving began only on May 4, and stamp printing on May 10 (a Friday), in sheets of 100 (contrary to the usual practice of printing 400 at a time and cutting into 100-stamp panes). As only six such aircraft existed, there was a 1-in-6 chance that the very plane engraved on the stamp by Marcus Baldwin-Jenny #38262-would be chosen to launch the inaugural three-city airmail run the plane on the stamp was indeed the first to depart from Washington on May 15, taking off at 11:47 A. The stamp's designer, Clair Aubrey Huston, apparently troubled to procure a photograph of that modified model (produced by removing the second pilot seat from the JN-4HT to create space for mailbags, and by increasing the fuel capacity). The Post Office set a controversial rate of 24 cents for the service, much higher than the 3 cents for first-class mail of the time, and decided to issue a new stamp just for this rate, patriotically printed in red and blue, and depicting a Curtiss Jenny JN-4HM, the biplane especially modified for shuttling the mail. The Post Office finally decided to inaugurate regular service on May 15, 1918, flying between Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New York City. These were shown by the first stamp in the world to picture an airplane (captioned as "aeroplane carrying mail"), one of the U.S.
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Prices eventually recovered, for on May 31, 2016, a particularly well-centered Jenny invert, graded XF-superb 95 by Professional Stamp Experts, was sold at a Siegel Auction for a hammer price of $1,175,000 The addition of a 15% buyer's premium raised the total record high price paid for this copy to $1,351,250. Between January and September 2014, five examples offered at auction sold for sums ranging from $126,000 through $575,100. In the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, prices fetched by Inverted Jennys receded. Siegel auction in October 2005 for $2.7 million. A block of four Inverted Jennys was sold at a Robert A. The broker of the sale said the buyer was a Wall Street executive who had lost the auction the previous month. In December 2007 a mint never hinged example was sold for $825,000.
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Siegel auction in November 2007 for $977,500.
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Only one pane of 100 of the invert stamps was ever found, making this error one of the most prized in philately.Ī single Inverted Jenny was sold at a Robert A. The Inverted Jenny (also known as an Upside Down Jenny, Jenny Invert) is a 24 cent United States postage stamp first issued on May 10, 1918, in which the image of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the center of the design is printed upside-down it is one of the most famous errors in American philately. American postage stamp with design error Inverted Jenny
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