January cartoon caption contest spotlights famous 1918 Jenny Invert airmail error stamp

U.S. Stamp Notes by John M. Hotchner

If there is one iconic image that Americans of any age associate with the collecting of United States stamps, it is the inverted Curtiss Jenny airplane on the 1918 24¢ airmail stamp (Scott C3a).

Much has been written telling the story of how one lucky buyer bought a single pane of 100 of the inverts at a Washington, D.C., post office on May 14, 1918. It turned out to be the only such pane to reach the public.

Alerted to the find, the Post Office Department (POD) at the time briefly paused sales at post offices to survey the existing stock, making certain that no more of the error panes would be sold. None were found, though later investigation at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), the printer responsible for the production of the bicolor stamp, determined that other invert panes had been printed. However those panes were caught by BEP quality control inspectors and destroyed.

The POD also sent postal inspectors to visit the buyer, 29-year-old William T. Robey, demanding that he return the pane. He refused, but felt enough pressure that he decided to sell the pane as soon as possible for a significant price. On May 20, 1918, Robey concluded the sale of the pane to Philadelphia dealer Eugene Klein for $15,000 (more than $300,000 in today’s dollars).

Over the more than 100 years since these events, the pane has been broken up into singles and blocks. These were sold and resold to individual collectors as singles or blocks, with singles currently selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Each of the 100 stamps from the pane can be differentiated as to its position in the pane by the location of its perforations, the precise location of the blue plane with relation to the red frame, the presence or absence of printed red guidelines, position dots added to the blue plate as it was being made, and straight edges on some of the stamps.

The brightly colored stamp itself is compelling. Photos in the media usually show the airplane upside down, as is pictured in the box nearby. But it is actually the frame that is upside down, as the blue plane was the first of the two colors to be printed. The red frame was added in a second operation. The red frames were added to a sheet with properly printed blue planes, which in the case of the error sheet was then fed into the red frame press upside down.

The ownership of each stamp from the error pane has been tracked, and some of the stories of the stamps read like dime store novels with tales of theft, examples going missing for decades, and near disaster due to careless handling. Through it all, the attractiveness of the stamp design, and the stories about it, have generated demand that makes every new offering of an example at auction a major philatelic event.

It is the most well-known of all U.S. stamps; and owning one marks a collector as being among the top level of American stamp collectors. Almost every adult in the United States has heard of the Jenny Invert or seen a photo of one. I can’t count the number of people who, upon hearing that I’m a stamp collector, ask me “Do you have one of those upside down airplane stamps?” My response: “I wish! By the time I reached adulthood and was earning a paycheck, the price per stamp had already gotten beyond my ability to buy one.”

But apparently having to write sizable checks has not been an impediment to ownership for a significant number of people who over the years have known and appreciated the Jenny Invert story.

So we will use this world-famous stamp as our cartoon caption contest stamp for January. Put yourself in the pilot seat, and tell me what you think you might be saying or thinking as you realize your situation and are wondering what to do next.

Captions might relate to the creation of the error and its significance as a collectible, airmail or other delivery systems, philately in general, science, politics, or any other subject that occurs to you.

The best of the entries, one related to philately and one nonphilatelic, will be announced in this column. For each of the two winners, the prize will be a 13-week subscription to Linn’s (a new subscription or an extension).

To enter, write your caption (or captions) on a postcard and send it to me, John Hotchner, Linn’s Cartoon Contest, Box 1125, Falls Church, VA 22041-0125, or by email at jmhstamp@verizon.net. However, if you enter, it is essential that you include both an email and postal mailing address. Entries must reach me no later than Jan. 24.

Why not enter now while you’re thinking about it?

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