Pan-Am Stamp Blunder

A Mistake in Printing Sends up Price of Small Issue

The Buffalo Evening News May 11, 1901

(From the Associated Press)  The Times says: Two-cent stamps (Buffalo Exposition series), worth considerably more than their face value, may be the sequel to a blunder said to have been made by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving at Washington. It is said that a sheet containing 100 stamps was reversed before being run off, thus causing the picture of the express train to be printed inverted within the red border. There are 100 of them in existence and collectors are already looking for them.

The sheet was sent, in the ordinary course of business, to Brooklyn, where it was placed on sale. A manufacturing firm bought 10 of the stamps and wrote to the department at Washington, complaining of them, using one of the very stamps in transmitting its letter of protest.

Thus the fact came out, and an enterprising philatelist in Washington at once set about trying to secure as many of them as possible. He secured four by paying a Brooklyn man $20 each for them. A stamp firm here is said to have secured two more of the same.

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