1901 2c Mint Invert..

holy cow.. nystamps has one for sale on ebay for almost 55,000.00

How many other really nice stamps do you think you could buy for $55,000?

It seems to me this is museum quality material.

As a private stamp collector, even if you had the resources to buy and own such a rarity, what would you do with it? It's expertised, I'm sure, so it probably doesn't take a spot in an album, but sits in a protective case of some sort. Does it sit in the house? Probably not, as no one would want to take the responsibility to leave such a rare stamp in a place where a burglar could hit (or they spend extra money to install a sophisticated alarm system...but even that doesn't offer any guarantees against theft.) It also would need speciality insurance at even more extra cost. So, it probably gets put in a safe deposit box or something. How can you "enjoy" a stamp like that?

I seem to recall reading some years ago that someone had a stock of inverted Jenny's sitting in a household collection and it inadvertently fell to the floor and the maid unknowingly vacuumed them up while cleaning, resulting in damaged copies that reduced the value significantly (by thousands of dollars.) I can't even imagine how the owner of such a rarity felt after that encounter. It makes me glad I don't have any really rare specimens.

As posted previously, "How many other really nice stamps do you think you could buy for $55,000?" Personally, I'd rather have many nice quality stamps at lower cost than one big rarity for that kind of money. (It won't be hard for me to meet that goal either, as I'll never have the resources to even consider a $55,000 stamp!)

Great points wt1.

As a former coin collector (and I'm very proud to admit that), this was one of the big points of coin collectors.

You collected coins, but you couldn't show them to anyone or keep them in your house/apartment because they would get stolen, etc.

That's the nice thing about stamps.

I currently have about 8 different early stamps from Nigeria on my coffee table. I'm hoping the robber can determine whether it's SG8(a), (b), (c), (d), (e), or (f).

Basically, I've given up and I wish them luck in determining the subtypes.

okay well, I just bought that stamp..

(just kidding) I would have to sell my house to buy it.

It was not a "Stock" of them it was one stamp. There were only 2 sheet's ever printed. 1 is owned by the BEP and was made after the fact for display purposes. It is of course not available to collectors. The Original sheet is the one that was broken up and is the sheet that all on the market come from.

Thanks for the correction. I was commenting on the article from memory.

For anyone interested, this is an excerpt from Linn's Stamp News:

In the Dec. 18, 1989, issue of Linn's Stamp News, Michael Laurence reported that one of the famous United States Jenny Invert airmail stamp errors of 1918, of which only 100 are known, had just suffered an inadvertent trip through a vacuum cleaner. Although the stamp was retrieved from the appliance and dusted off, the journey left it creased, soiled and torn.

The owner, a well-off East Coast collector, reportedly responded to the mishap by saying, "Thank goodness it's something I can replace."




It must be nice to be a millionaire and able to make such a comment!