After nearly 11 years the $2 Jenny Invert finally sold out

By Jay Bigalke

The United States $2 Jenny Invert stamp (Scott 4806) has finally sold out just shy of 11 years after it was issued on Sept. 22, 2013.

“As of August 2024, the $2 Inverted Jenny stamp is no longer available from the U.S. Postal Service,” USPS spokesman Jim McKean told Linn’s in an Aug. 23 email.

The $2 Jenny Invert stamps were issued in panes of six as a tribute to America’s most famous stamp error. That 1918 24¢ Jenny Invert airmail stamp (Scott C3a) has a blue Jenny biplane accidentally printed upside down within its carmine rose frame.

The $2 Jenny Invert stamps were at the center of a Postal Service promotional program that included just 100 specially printed panes intentionally showing the Jenny biplane in the center of each stamp flying right-side up. The regularly issued $2 stamp portrays the plane upside down.

Each of the 2.2 million panes of the 2013 issue was sealed in a printed paper envelope within a cellophane wrapping, thwarting efforts to detect the rare upright variety included among the regular inverted issue.

Collector demand for the limited upright variety pushed aftermarket values sky-high, with some public auctions seeing realizations of more than $50,000.

The 100 upright Jenny Invert panes were packaged with a card printed with a phone number the finder could call to receive a certificate signed by the U.S. postmaster general and to register the purchase and discovery. However, because the registration was voluntary, it is presumed that some of the found panes were never recorded.

As a result, no one is sure how many have been found and how many remain undiscovered.

Linn’s tally of the upright Jenny Invert panes stands at 43 reported as of the Jan. 9, 2023, issue. No new finds have been reported to date.

All the unsold panes at post offices were recalled and returned to Stamp Fulfillment Services in Kansas City, Mo., where they remained on sale until early August. Linn’s has heard reports of collectors being able to purchase the stamps as late as the end of July.

In the September 2023 issue of the Scott Stamp Monthly, Joe Brockert told the story of the $2 Jenny Invert stamp in his Philatelic Backstory column. That article was published at the 10th anniversary of the stamp’s on-sale date.

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