In December, a 6-cent airmail stamp was distributed for sale. In July 1918, the price of an airmail stamp was lowered to 16 cents and a green stamp was issued. Public interest in sending mail such a short distance by air decreased quickly. Only a limited issue of this stamp was made. The unsold sheets in the three post offices that distributed them originally were called in and the printing plate was altered so that the word “top” was added for the benefit of the printers who had to run the stamp through red and blue printings. The Post Office Department, as might be expected, did not enjoy the publicity given its most notorious printing error. Besides, as he predicted accurately, breaking upthe sheet would enhance the valueof the stamps. Green later decided that he would break up the sheet of 100 so that other collectors could obtain some of the coveted stamps. Klein sold the sheet later for $20,000 to Colonel E.H.R. He received offers varying from $2,500 to $15,000 for the entire sheet and finally sold it for the latter figure to Eugene Klein of Philadelphia for a profit of $14,976. Robey went to New York City and made the rounds of stamp collectors to get appraisals. The only thing he did not know was just how valuable his acquisition was. He knew that hehad a valuable find and that there was no law which said he had to give his sheet back. It was an offer Robey had no trouble refusing. Within a short time, Robey was visited by two postal inspectors who offered him a sheet of “good” stamps for his sheet of inverts. During his inquiries, the friend mentioned Robey’s name and where he worked. The friend immediately set out to find similar sheets in other post office branches but was unsuccessful. Robey returned to his office and told a friend. Needless to say, I left that office in a hurry with my sheet of inverts tucked safely under my arm.” Without any comment, he left the window and ran for a telephone.
“I handed them back to the clerk,” Robey said in a 1938 article, “and then showed him the sheet that I had purchased and drew his attention to the fact that the airplane was upside down. Without acknowledging what he had just received, Robey asked for three more sheets, but all were printed correctly. The entire sheet of two-color stamps with an airplane in the center had the engraving of the airplane upside down! Robey took one look as the clerk slid the sheet toward him, and, as he later recalled, his “heart stood still.” For a stamp collector, he was experiencing the thrill of a lifetime.
6 cent airmail stamp value full#
Robey, a stock brokerage clerk and an ardent stamp collector, went to the window of a post office in downtown Washington, D.C., near his office and was issued a full sheet of 100 of the new stamps, for which he had just withdrawn money from his savings account. They would be available for use in connection with the first and subsequent airmail flights. Post Office press release stating that special 24-cent airmail postage stamps would be issued in Washington, D.C., on May 13, 1918, and the next day in Philadelphia and New York City. Inverted Airmail StampThe story begins with a hurriedly issued U.S.
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