postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...
error issued by the
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal governmen ...
. It is one stamp from the Americana series that were produced between 1975 and 1981. The $1 colonial
rushlight
A rushlight is a type of candle or miniature torch formed by soaking the dried pith of the Juncaceae, rush plant in fat or grease. For several centuries, rushlights were a common source of artificial light for poor people throughout the British Is ...
holder stamp was first issued on July 2, 1979, and one pane of 100 stamps was issued with the dark brown (the last color printed, though it covers much of the stamp) inverted. The lamp candle holder, candle outline and text are inverted relative to the flame. About 95 copies have been accounted for. The stamp's
Scott catalogue
The Scott catalogue of postage stamps, published by Scott Publishing Company, now a subsidiary of Amos Media, is updated annually and lists all the stamps of the world that its editors recognize as issued for postal purposes. It is published in f ...
number is 1610c. This was the first United States stamp issued with a major design element printed upside down since the Dag Hammarskjöld invert error of 1962. As these $1 stamps were printed in sheets of 400, three additional panes of 100 stamps certainly existed at one time, but no trace of these has been discovered.
When the one known pane of this invert was discovered, in the spring of 1986, it had already been on sale at the post office in
McLean, Virginia
McLean ( ) is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population of the community was 50,773 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is ...
for some time without anyone noticing the error: indeed, five of its one hundred stamps had been sold by unsuspecting clerks, and the portion of the selvage bearing the plate number was no longer attached. In this incomplete form, the pane was purchased by an employee of the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
, who had been sent to the post office to buy stamps for the agency. The purchaser failed at first to notice that the flames were inverted relative to the candle holder and lettering. Only several days later was the error discovered, by a CIA employee who needed a $1 stamp for an agency mailing. Once this man had shared his information with eight colleagues, the nine decided to acquire the error stamps for themselves. Purchasing 95 normal $1 stamps, the group exchanged these for the CIA's inverts. They then revealed their find to an
Annandale, Virginia
Annandale () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia.Inverted Jenny that is valued at $150,000, despite the fact that about the same number of each stamp exist. A block of four stamps sold in 2004 for $60,000 and a second block was sold in 2015 for $71,875. Reproductions have been sold on
eBay
eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...