Upside down Curtiss JN-4H 'Jenny sees the light of day again

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Upside down Curtiss JN-4H 'Jenny sees the light of day again

Postby OldAirmail » Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:15 pm

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Re: Upside down Curtiss JN-4H 'Jenny sees the light of day a

Postby Jetranger » Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:59 pm

Little bit of a Story behind that stamp

Back in about 1977 or maybe 1979 somewhere around that time frame, my mother called me into the kitchen to look at some stamp, she had received from her mother,,, and the thing that caught my mom's eyes was the mistake of an airplane that was pictured upside down,, and she thought it was a mistake,,,,,

I don't remember much about it, for at that time I was young and could of cared less about stupid stamps,,,, I had girls on my mind and hot rods & drag racing

I remember she told some guy about it, and as I recall he gave her $20.00 for it back then,,,,, and that's all I know & remember about the incident

I remember it was an ugly ol' Double Wing Bi Plane, painted upside down and an old stamp,,, kinda thought at the time it was stupid, its just a Stamp, who gives a flyin Jack if its upside down or not, as long as it will stick on a letter and get mailed,,,,

Wish I had that sucker now tho' !!!!!

This particular incident happened in Kansas City around late 1970's early 1980's,,,,, that's all I remember about it,,,,

My mothers name was Jenny, so she almost kept that stamp as I remember but she opted for the $20.00 instead,,,,
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Re: Upside down Curtiss JN-4H 'Jenny sees the light of day a

Postby Flacke » Sat Apr 16, 2016 12:48 am

This whole problem could be easily solved by simply turning the stamp Upside-Down and looking at it that way. Why do I have to do all the thinkin' around here!
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Re: Upside down Curtiss JN-4H 'Jenny sees the light of day a

Postby OldAirmail » Sat Apr 16, 2016 6:26 am

I had a bunch of those stamps.

Not wanting the guvment to look stuped I carefully cut out the plane and taped it right side up.

Wasn't no problem at all, only 20 or 30 of them.



Had a couple of bags of coins with problems like that airplane. I in heratid them from my uncle.

Can you imagin, some of them coins had an injun head on BOTH sides. Who'd put an injun head on a coin! :lol:

Well, maybe if he was one of those pressadents. ???

Anyway, took the bags down to the scrap metal yard and the guy told me that because there wes copper, silver, and yellow coins mixed together he'd have to hire someone to sort it into different bins.

Well. I did get some good money. Checked it over real careful to be sure there was no problems. I'm not just anybody's fool you know! :evil:

Can't be too careful nowadays.
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Re: Upside down Curtiss JN-4H 'Jenny sees the light of day a

Postby Apex » Sat Apr 16, 2016 7:36 am

Totally far out! That stamp I believe is the rarest of all issued by the USPO. There have been other printing errors that got through, but none as cool as this one.

Back a few years ago, a friend of a friend's told me he had been given a suitcase full of FULL SHEETS of US commemoratives plus some other odds & ends in there. He didn't know anything about stamps. I do. I offered to appraise the collection for free, wondering what I might find, as the collection was from the elderly woman who lived next door to him and left the collection to him in her will as gratitude for his helping her out over the years.

Wow, what a sight, about 50 full sheets, 50 stamps each, from the 40's and 50's, in perfect mint condition. I couldn't believe my eyes. Unfortunately, among the scattered singles and covers therein, nothing of great value. The sheets were only worth maybe $10.00 each, if sold, the buyer would take them apart, keeping the plate block intact, and thereby having the block and a lot of singles, all of which would fetch more that way.

So the entire collection was only worth catalog about $600. But to see those complete sheets was a real treat. He gave me two that I offered to buy, I framed them, two sheets from 1944 or so depicting sailing ships, from the USPS days when the intaglio engraving process produced stamps that were tiny works of art.*

I do not know what happened to the collection, I haven't seen the person in many years, last word was that he still had the collection.

* The printing process was to print large sheets of 200 with a common plate block number in each corner, that large sheet was then divided into sheets of 50 each for distribution. Each corner of each 50 sheet section would therefore have the same plate number, the four stamp 'plate block', as it was called, would be kept intact for collectors.
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Re: Upside down Curtiss JN-4H 'Jenny sees the light of day a

Postby Apex » Sat Apr 16, 2016 7:45 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_Jenny

And some interesting stuff on Wiki. Keep yer eyes peeled for upside-down biplanes, guys!
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