FLOAT
A used example of the Western Australia 4d blue Inverted Swan frame-invert error (SG 4a), held by the State Library of New South Wales - another example of the roughly 15 known, not the Vestey copy whose 2015 sale prices this constituent. The frame text reads upside down while the swan is upright.
A used example of the Western Australia 4d blue Inverted Swan frame-invert error (SG 4a), held by the State Library of New South Wales - another example of the roughly 15 known, not the Vestey copy whose 2015 sale prices this constituent. The frame text reads upside down while the swan is upright.

Inverted Swan

Maker
Colony of Western Australia
Year
1855
Rank
13 of 100
Identifier
4d blue, the FRAME inverted (not the swan); ~15 complete copies survive; used 3-margin example

Inverted Swan

Realized at auction: $190,000, dated 2015-05-19. This is a realized sale. Somebody paid it.

What is it, and why is it in the FLOAT 100?

One of the world's first invert errors — predating the Inverted Jenny by 63 years — and the foundational error of Australian philately.

4d blue, the FRAME inverted (not the swan); ~15 complete copies survive; used 3-margin example

What is the best-sourced number for it?

Figure
$190,000
Kind
Realized at auction
Date
2015-05-19

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Inverted Swan is number 36 of 99 in the stamps entries of the FLOAT 100. 75 of those 99 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (13 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

How this is made

The figure
One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
Realized or not
A realized price is a completed sale. A market asking price and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
Why no grade ladder
Most FLOAT 100 entries are individual objects. There is one of this, so there is no population and no spread across grades to show.
Archive
2026-08-08

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