Year date mistake on Henry James first-day cover available from USPS

By Michael Baadke

Mistakes in the cancels of first-day covers are unusual but not unheard of, and a new one has surfaced on FDCs for the United States nondenominated (89¢) Henry James 3-ounce rate stamp issued July 31.

An unknown quantity of the FDCs were postmarked with a first-day-of-issue cancel dated July 31, 31016, instead of the correct date of July 31, 2016.

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The postmarks so far have been reported only on the uncacheted covers sold by the United States Postal Service through its Stamp Fulfillment Services division.

The discovery of the date error was reported by a contributor to the Stamp Collecting Forum, one of the online Delphi Forums.

Collectors can order examples of both the correct date and the incorrect postmark from Stamp Fulfillment Services using item No. 119416 for the correct date and item No. 119417 for the mistake.

Each cover is priced at $1.33.