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FAMOUS
STAMPS 2
The Inverted Jenny.
This
stamp may very well be the most prized find for philatelists. Due
to an increase in postage rates, the post office decided to rush
out a new stamp especially for this price increase. This was a
stamp that shows a Curtiss Jenny, which is the name of a biplane
used to transport the mail. There was such haste in the designing
and printing of these stamps that several mistakes occurred. Not
only was there a rush in getting the design and printing done. The
particular design also required two colors meaning that the sheets
needed to be passed through the printing press twice. This caused
the error probability rate to be extremely high in the printing of
these. As it were, there were inverted errors where the plane
ended up on the stamp upside down twice during the years of using
this particular design. Most of these were caught and destroyed
but it’s believed that at least one sheet containing 100 stamps
got out into the mainstream. Postal authorities worked diligently
to find these stamps but stamp collectors, upon hearing of the
mistake, knew that these could potentially have value and were
smart enough to hang on to them over the years. Today many stamp
collectors spend much of their time looking for these Inverted
Jenny’s. These stamps have been known to sell for as much as
$525,000 USD.
The British Guiana 1 cent magenta.
This is
the rarest postage stamp in the world. Only three were ever made
in British Guiana aka Guyana. The history of these stamps is quite
interesting. Apparently a shipment of stamps never arrived by ship
so the local postmaster authorized a couple of newspaper
publishers to print out three stamps. The postmaster gave very
specific instructions about the design but the printer decided to
put his own little twist on it. As a result the postmaster was
displeased with the result. He ordered that each of these three
stamps that went out were to be signed by the postal clerks as a
preventive method against forgery. Today only one of these stamps
is known to exist. This stamp is heavily soiled, postmarked and
even cut but one can still see the signature as ordered, by the
postmaster, on the stamp.
The Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill.
This one
is holds the distinction of being the rarest AND most valuable
stamp. This stamp was created with an embossed waffle in the
“Z-Grill” design with the hopes that this would absorb the
canceling ink that the postal system uses on the stamps. This was
done in hopes of discouraging those who wanted to cheat the post
office however, it was soon found to be impractical and
discontinued. Today there are only two of these stamps in
existence that’s known of.
These stamps are hold some distinction of having some unique
history or being the first, rarest or most valuable among all the
stamps in history therefore making them extremely sought after by
collectors all over the world.
Original Article Source:
http://www.RareStamp.com |
