The Inverted Jenny: the 24¢ stamp worth $2 million
The stamp
In May 1918 the United States began regular airmail service and issued a 24-cent stamp for it, printed in carmine red and blue and showing a Curtiss JN-4 biplane, nicknamed the "Jenny". Because the stamp used two colours, each sheet went through the press twice, once for the frame and once for the plane. On at least one sheet, the paper went in upside down for the second pass.
The find
On 14 May 1918 a young collector named William T. Robey bought a sheet of 100 at a post office in Washington, D.C., paying $24. Every stamp showed the plane flying upside down. He sold the sheet within days for $15,000, a fortune at the time. It passed to Colonel Edward H. R. Green, who broke it up into single stamps and small blocks.
Why it's worth so much
- Only 100 exist. No other inverted sheet has ever been found.
- Every stamp is traceable. Each one's position on the original sheet is known, so its history can be followed from owner to owner.
- It's the most famous US stamp error. Its story is as much a part of the value as its rarity.
Prices have climbed for a century. In 2023, a single Inverted Jenny sold at auction for just over $2 million, a record for a single US stamp.
Could you have one?
Almost certainly not a 1918 original, but there are two things worth knowing:
- In 2013 the US Postal Service reissued the design as a $2 stamp. Those are common. A genuine 1918 stamp says 24 cents.
- Reproductions and fakes are everywhere. A real Inverted Jenny comes with expert certification and documented history.
The bigger lesson
Printing errors, misprints and short-lived issues are where ordinary items become valuable: coins with doubled dates, stamps with missing colours or inverted centres, banknotes with misaligned printing. If something looks "wrong", it's worth a second look before it goes in a donation box.
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