|
|
| The First Art Newspaper on the Net |
   |
Established in 1996 |
|
Monday, September 15, 2025 |
|
| Precious United States stamp "Inverted Jenny" found six decades after its theft |
|
|
A rare stamp known as an "Inverted Jenny" is displayed at the World Stamp Show in Manhattan on June 2, 2016 in New York City. The stamp, one of the most famous stamps in American history, was stolen from a display case at a convention in 1955 and only located last March. The stamp, which features an airplane printed upside-down, only surfaced at a New York auction house in April when an Irish man who had inherited it brought it in. Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP.
|
NEW YORK (AFP).- A rare US stamp known as the "Inverted Jenny" has been recovered 61 years after its theft.
The stamp was officially donated Thursday to the American Philatelic Research Library (APRL), according to a release from the US Attorney's office in New York.
The Inverted Jenny stamp came from a sheet of 100 stamps printed in 1918, and gained fame for being misprinted upside down.
The sheet was later broken up and individual stamps sold to collectors.
The stamp has an image of the Curtiss Jenny JN-4HM biplane modified for shuttling mail.
It commemorated the US Postal Service's first airmail flight on May 15, 1918, with a value of 24 cents per stamp.
On Thursday, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara announced the return of one of the stolen stamps.
Investigators recovered the stamp after the Spink auction house in New York alerted authorities that an individual had tried to sell the stamp.
The owner Keelin O'Neill assured the FBI during questioning that he had inherited the "Inverted Jenny" from his grandfather, now deceased.
O'Neill agreed to relinquish the stamp to authorities once he learned it was stolen.
The returned stamp is one of four from a block stolen from collector Ethel B. Stewart McCoy in 1955.
Three of the four stamps stolen from McCoy -- who died in 1980 -- are entrusted to the APRL. The fourth is still missing.
At a Robert A. Siegel auction on Tuesday in New York, an Inverted Jenny stamp from the original sheet of 100 sold for $1.2 million to a private buyer.
© 1994-2016 Agence France-Presse
|
|
|
|
|
Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week,  . |
|
|
|
Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:
|
|
|
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful
|
|
