Image Insert:
(Image borrowed from "MYSTIC'S Guide To Stamp Collecting")
The CIA invert is a $1 value USPS stamp error. This stamp is from Americana series produced between 1975 and 1981. The $1 colonial RUSH LAMP holder stamp was issued on July 2, 1979. It seems that one sheet of 100 stamps was issued with the black inverted. The lamp candle holder and text are inverted. About 95 copies have been accounted for. The SC# number 1610c. This was the first US stamp issued with a
major design element printed upside down since the Dag Hammarskjöld inverted error of 1962.
One sheet of stamps was bought by a CIA employee who was sent to the post office purchase stamps. Several employees saved one each, the remaining stamps of 86 were sold to a dealer. The Government demanded that the 9 employees involved surrender their stamps--5 returned their stamps, 3 resigned, and one stated he lost his stamp (Twenty years later he tried to sell his inverted stamp to Mystic.) The stamps catalog for approx $15,000. The CIA donated the recovered stamps to the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.
INFO combined and borrowed from Wikipedia and the "Mystic Guide to Stamp Collecting"
THANKS!
Gussyboy1
Posted 10/18/2008 2:53 pm
