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New York, NY – November 21, 2007 – One spring day in 1918, stamp collector William T. Robey took a break from his job and went to the post office to buy the new 24-cent stamp that was being issued for the first air mail flight. He paid $24 for a sheet of 100 stamps featuring the Curtiss JN-4 biplane, more commonly known as the Jenny.
It was the best investment he could have made. On that particular sheet of stamps, the only sheet of 100 to reach the public, the Jenny was inverted due to a printer’s error. Soon after it was discovered, Robey sold his sheet for $15,000.
Last week one stamp from that sheet sold for $977,500, including commission, at an auction held by Siegel Auction Galleries in New York City. It is the highest amount ever paid at auction for a single copy of the inverted Jenny stamp.
Charles Hack, a New Yorker who made money in real estate, purchased the stamp for his private collection. It is the second inverted Jenny stamp he owns; he purchased the first one in 2005 for $297,000, including commission, according to The New York Times.
The stamp sold last week comes from Position 57 in the sheet. It was originally part of the block of four stamps that the dealer who brokered Robey's sheet kept for himself. It was kept in a bank vault from 1918 until 1959.
“Stamps have a parallel quality to fine art — this thing gives a satisfaction, it’s a great piece of Americana,” Hack, 60, told the New York Times.
This isn’t the first Inverted Jenny Siegal Auction Galleries has sold. In June 2005, the firm sold an unused inverted Jenny for $557,500.
That same year Siegel sold an inverted Jenny Plate Block for more than $2.9 million, a world-record price for a U.S. philatelic item.
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The famous 1918 “Jenny” stamp which recently sold at an auction for a record price.
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