What is the Reverse Jenny and why is it worth $2 million?

Name a stamp. Every stamp.

Unless you’re a die-hard stamp collector, you might respond, “There’s one with an old-fashioned airplane on its head, right?”

That stamp, known to philatelists as the Inverted Jenny, has transcended the hobby and achieved a certain fame.

And recently one, originally priced at 24 cents, sold for more than $2 million.

Oops, I created something of enormous value.

The reverse Jenny, issued by the United States Post Office in 1918, shows a biplane called the Curtiss JN, known as a Jenny. But partly due to the rush to print the stamps, some stamps accidentally had the plane printed upside down.

Only one block of 100 of the misprinted stamps was made public.

The value was not immediately clear. A clerk bought it for face value, $24. He later sold it for $15,000.

Eventually the block was broken up and individual stamps began to be sold to collectors: for a few hundred dollars, then a few thousand, then more and more. Soon the six-figure barrier was broken, and then they went for seven figures.

This stamp is a pop star.

The story of the misprint and ever-increasing sales prices began to make the Reverse Jenny famous enough to be a cultural reference point.

In the 1985 comedy “Brewster’s Millions,” Richard Pryor, desperately trying to spend $30 million for plot reasons, asks a dealer for his most expensive stamp and is shown the upside-down Jenny. He pays $1.25 million for it… then uses it to send a postcard.

In a 1993 episode of “Simpsons,” Homer searches through a box of five-cent items at a swap meet. He chooses not to buy a block of Inverted Jenny’s and complains that “the plane is upside down.” (He also passes on a Declaration of Independence, a copy of the first Superman comic book, and a Stradivarius violin.)

The modern postal service tried to make money. It was released in 2013 replicas of the stampsthis time with the plane that flew upside down on purpose.

The stamps have even been targeted by thieves. In 1955, a block of four was stolen at a stamp collecting convention in Norfolk, Virginia. Despite reward offers, only three of those stamps have been recovered. The other one is out there somewhere. Maybe start searching?

First check grandpa’s safe.

The stamp, sold last week, was discovered in 2018 after spending generations in a vault. The long stay in a vault ensured that it remained in perfect condition. Later that year it was sold for $1.593 million.

It was like that on Wednesday under the hammer again by Robert A. Siegel auction galleries.

The final price was a record for the stamp, $2,006,000.

The buyer, Charles Hack, a 76-year-old real estate developer and investor, had incurred a loss during the 2018 sale. told The Washington Post. This time he was willing to go higher for such a pristine stamp.

“This is the premium one,” he said. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”