By Fr. Bill Kneemiller
Recently I read that the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp of the “Inverted Jenny” biplane stamp a few months ago. This stamp is a commemoration of the famous error in which the U.S. Postal Service printed images of the biplane flying upside down.
The misprint occurred in 1918 in a rush to celebrate the first airmail flight with the issuance of a 24-cent Curtiss Jenny stamp, according to the U.S. Postal Service website. The two-color printing process at that time was prone to human error, a fact known to stamp collectors. “A Washington, D.C., Post Office clerk — who had never seen an airplane — sold a sheet of 100 stamps mistakenly showing the biplane upside down. For nearly a century, stamp collectors have chased the inverted Jennys and have accounted for nearly all 100 of them” (http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2013/pr13_079.htm).
Several months ago, the Postal Service issued the Inverted Jenny stamp, but shortly afterwards issued six pages of these stamps that depict the biplane flying right-side up to generate interest in stamp collecting. The stamps come in a sealed envelope so the buyer doesn’t know until opening the envelope whether the stamps are upside down or right-side up. Anyone who buys one of these pages of six, $2 stamps picturing the upright Jenny will have an instantly rare stamp, with an estimated value of at least $25,000 for the page. That figure is based on stamp collector and author Peter Rexford’s estimate.
The reason I’m mentioning this is that I’m inviting anyone around the state of Iowa to buy a page of these stamps. If by a 100,000 to 1 chance you get a page of stamps of the Inverted Jenny flying right-side up, please consider donating part of your good fortune to our Rosary Factory in Haiti.
If you know anyone involved in the business of mailing packages, please encourage them to buy these stamps while they are still available. Also, anyone who has extra $2 stamps and would like to help me mail hundreds of rosaries to people in the military, please send stamps to Fr. Kneemiller, c/o SS Philip & James Church, PO Box 7, Grand Mound, IA 52751.
(Father Bill Kneemiller is pastor of Ss. Philip & James Parish, Grand Mound; Sacred Heart Parish, Lost Nation; St. James Parish, Toronto; and Sacred Heart Parish, Oxford Junction.)
