'Inverted Jenny' stamp resurfaces
NEW YORK — One of the longest mysteries in the stamp-collecting world is getting a new chapter.
An “inverted Jenny” stamp stolen in 1955 surfaced this month at a New York auction house. The auctioneer, Spink USA, says it was submitted by someone who had inherited it.
The Bellefonte-based American Philatelic Research Library was given title to the stamp decades ago and is working with Spink USA and legal authorities to reclaim it.
The 1918 stamp features an airplane printed upside-down. It’s considered America’s most famous stamp.
The prospective consigner hasn’t been publicly identified. It’s unclear whether the person had any idea it was one of four Jennys taken from a 1955 stamp convention.
Two others were recovered in the 1980s and ’70s.
The 24-cent stamps fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars today.
The would-be consigner, a man in his 20s who lives in the United Kingdom, said he’d inherited the stamp from his grandfather and knew little about it, said George Eveleth, head of Spink USA’s philatelic department.
The stamp was accompanied by an intriguing item: a 1965 letter about a monetary loan from a noted stamp dealer to a well-known auctioneer, both now dead. However, the letter isn’t necessarily connected to this stamp.
