US 1901 Pan-American 1c Invert

A two-color stamp for a new century

The Pan-American issue was the first set of United States stamps of the twentieth century. Six values, from 1 cent to 10 cents, were released for the Pan-American Exposition, a world's fair held in Buffalo, New York, from May 1 to November 2, 1901, to promote what its organizers called "commercial well being and good understanding among the American Republics." The fair had been conceived in 1897 for Cayuga Island near Niagara Falls, then moved to Buffalo and delayed by the Spanish-American War.

The exposition's promoters asked the Post Office Department for commemorative stamps in 1899. Collectors were wary after the expensive Columbian and Trans-Mississippi sets, and the government also balked at the inscription the promoters wanted, "Pan-American Series–1901," which an assistant attorney general ruled was a commercial advertisement that the law barred from postage stamps. The finished stamps read "Commemorative Series 1901" instead, and the six values added up to just 30 cents, against $3.80 for the Trans-Mississippi set and $16.34 for the Columbians.

Every stamp in the set showed modern, fast transportation, and to drive the point home each was printed in two colors: a black center picture, or vignette, inside an ornate colored frame. It was the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's first attempt at two-color postage stamps, and the Post Office's first two-color issue since the 1869 Pictorial issue, which had also produced inverted centers on its first three values.

The public loved them. Shortly after the set appeared, the New York Times reported that five to six million of the stamps were being bought every day. The bureau printed 91,401,500 of the 1-cent value alone, which typically paid the one-cent postcard rate.

The ship, the engraver and the press

The whole set was designed by Raymond Ostrander Smith, who had started at a New York bank note company at fourteen before joining the bureau. The 1-cent vignette was engraved by George F. C. "Fred" Smillie, the bureau's chief engraver from 1894 to 1911, whose work diary records some 300 portraits and 135 vignettes. Lyman F. Ellis cut the lettering and numerals. The two standard reference books disagree over who engraved the frames of the higher values, but both credit the 1-cent frame to Robert Ponickau.

The picture is captioned "Fast Lake Navigation" and shows the steamer City of Alpena on the Great Lakes. Sources do not agree on the ship's particulars. One detailed study of the issue describes a 1,282-ton sidewheeler launched in 1893 by the Detroit and Cleveland line, able to carry 400 passengers, and notes that the vessel is sometimes confused with others of similar name. The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum describes a 917-ton City of Alpena built in 1880 that collided with the Tecumseh on Lake Huron on May 2, 1887.

The stamps were printed from frame and vignette plates of 200 subjects each, in 20 rows of 10, with the vignettes printed first and the frames second. Each full sheet was then cut into upper and lower panes of 100. If a sheet was turned the wrong way before its second pass, every frame landed upside down around its picture. Collectors call the result a center inverted error, though strictly it is the frame that was printed upside down.

Like the rest of the set, the stamp is engraved on paper watermarked with the double-line letters USPS and is perforated 12.

Found on a jeweler's circulars

The standard reference on twentieth-century U.S. stamps, by Max Johl and Beverly King, records that "the first known copies of this error were discovered at Bessemer, Alabama, by the Carrell Jewelry Company on some circulars just prior to mailing them. When they realized the find they had made they lost no time in removing the stamps from the circulars and thus saved them to philately."

Not every one was saved. The earliest documented use of the error is a cover postmarked at Bessemer on August 2, 1901. Four days later, on August 6, another went through the post office at Birmingham, about 15 miles away, on a piece that also carries a pen-canceled 1-cent postage due stamp, a sign of an ordinary, non-collector use. A third cover was mailed from Oakland, California, on August 24, 1901, addressed to France.

Inverts surfaced at at least four different post offices soon after the issue went on sale. One history of the issue places the other finds in New York, Connecticut and Virginia, and says the stamps were soon selling for $25 each. Another account says ten sheets were discovered, meaning fewer than 1,000 exist.

The finds caused a stir inside the Post Office Department, and its response produced the strangest stamp of the set: the 4-cent invert, printed on purpose after an erroneous report that the public had found one.

How to read one, and why grade matters

A genuine 294a is the green and black 1-cent stamp with the steamer upside down inside a right-side-up frame. Because the two plates were never perfectly registered, the position of the ship inside the frame varies from stamp to stamp, and well-centered copies are hard to find; one used example was described in 2016 as having "choice centering for this difficult issue." Most are found unused with hinge marks. Census records note 13 blocks of four, one block of six and one block of 20, some of which may since have been broken up.

Used copies are far scarcer than unused ones. A published census lists 51 used examples off cover and three on cover, 54 in all. Only six off-cover singles, plus one in the only recorded used pair, are confirmed sound; 40 off-cover stamps and one cover have faults ranging from creases to repairs, and three have not been seen since 1953, 1960 and 1979. One used copy shows a stitch watermark, a line left by the paper-making machine, and is the only one known to its cataloger with that feature.

This FLOAT 100 entry is an unused copy graded Extremely Fine 90 by Professional Stamp Experts. In 2011 an XF 90 example was described as the highest grade awarded to date, with only four others at the same grade; in 2013 another description counted five stamps at XF 90, all with previously hinged original gum, still the top of the population report. A 2013 cataloger argued that one of those stamps, with margins only slightly wider at the sides, was perfectly balanced and deserved a 95.

The error was reproduced in 2001 on a souvenir sheet for the centennial, using images taken from the original engraved dies. The copies are printed with the date "2001" in the lower left corner, which separates them from the real thing.

From $25 to more than $50,000

The 1-cent is the most available of the three Pan-American inverts and has always been the entry point to the group. The Bessemer cover of August 2, 1901, the earliest recorded use, brought $110,000 before buyer's premium at auction in 1999.

In April 2009 a top-quality single from the Alan B. Whitman collection sold for $19,000 before premium at auction. The same stamp, by then graded XF 90, returned in the Beverly Hills collection of U.S. inverts on October 9, 2013, and sold for $30,000.

Grade has since pulled prices apart. At a March 15, 2016 sale in New York, an ordinary unused copy brought $4,750 and the only recorded used pair $19,000. Seven months later, on October 6, 2016, an XF 90 copy from the Hanover collection of superb-quality twentieth-century stamps sold for $51,750, part of what one trade report headlined as the Pan-American inverts surging past the $100,000 level for the scarcer values.

The numbers

Issue date

May 1, 1901 (normal stamp); inverts found by early August 1901

Normal stamps printed

91,401,500 of the 1-cent value

Inverts

One account says ten sheets were discovered, fewer than 1,000 stamps

Used census

54 recorded (51 off cover, 3 on cover); 6 sound off-cover singles plus one sound stamp in the only used pair

Colors

Green frame, black vignette

Printing

Engraved, two passes on flat plates of 200 subjects (20 rows of 10), cut into panes of 100; vignette printed first

Paper and perforation

Double-line USPS watermark; perforated 12

Top grade

XF 90 (Professional Stamp Experts), five stamps at that grade as of 2013

Timeline

1. 1897

   The Pan-American Exposition is conceived, originally for Cayuga Island near Niagara Falls.

2. 1899

   Exposition promoters petition the Post Office Department for commemorative stamps.

3. Jul 14, 1900

   The New York Times reports the ruling that the requested "Pan-American Series–1901" inscription would be an illegal advertisement.

4. May 1, 1901

   The six Pan-American stamps go on sale on the exposition's opening day.

5. Aug 2, 1901

   Earliest documented use of the 1-cent invert, on a cover from Bessemer, Alabama, where the Carrell Jewelry Company found the error on its circulars.

6. Aug 6, 1901

   An invert is used at Birmingham, Alabama, on a piece with a 1-cent postage due stamp.

7. Aug 24, 1901

   An invert pays postage on a cover from Oakland, California, to France.

8. Sep 11, 1952

   The only recorded used pair is offered at auction.

9. 1999

   The August 2, 1901 Bessemer cover sells for $110,000 before premium.

10. Mar 29, 2001

    The Postal Service issues a centennial souvenir sheet reproducing the three Pan-American inverts.

11. Apr 14, 2009

    A choice single from the Whitman collection sells for $19,000 before premium.

12. Oct 13, 2011

    Four unused copies sell in one New York session, from $6,000 to $15,500; the top lot is graded XF 90.

13. Oct 9, 2013

    The ex-Whitman copy, now graded XF 90, sells for $30,000 in the Beverly Hills collection of U.S. inverts.

14. Mar 15, 2016

    A block of four, the only used pair and several used singles are sold in New York.

15. Oct 6, 2016

    An XF 90 copy from the Hanover collection sells for $51,750 in New York.

The world in 1901

• May 1, 1901

  The Pan-American Exposition opened in Buffalo to promote trade and goodwill among the republics of the Americas; it ran until November 2.

• 1901

  The fair's buildings and grounds were lit by electricity sent over long distances with Nikola Tesla's alternating-current system.

• Sep 6, 1901

  President William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz while greeting the public in the exposition's Temple of Music.

• Sep 14, 1901

  McKinley died of an infected abdominal wound, and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became president.

• Oct 29, 1901

  Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair, about six weeks after the shooting.

• Jan 1902

  Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith, in office since April 1898, was succeeded by Henry C. Payne; Smith's department had been marred by influence-peddling and kickback scandals.

Price record

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, US 1901 Pan-American 1c Invert is number 54 of 100 in the stamps entries of the FLOAT 100. 82 of those 100 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 (29 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Strictly speaking, the ship is not upside down: the vignettes were printed first, so it is the green frames that were printed the wrong way round.
• The stamps were saved because a jewelry company in Bessemer, Alabama, noticed the error on its own advertising circulars before mailing them.
• One 1901 invert was used on mail alongside a 1-cent postage due stamp, which a cataloger took as a sign of an ordinary, non-collector use.
• The 1-cent Pan-American was the first U.S. 1-cent stamp printed in two colors; another multicolored 1-cent did not appear until 1991.
• The government refused the promoters' wording "Pan-American Series–1901" because it counted as an advertisement.
• A 2001 souvenir sheet reproduces the invert from the original dies; the copies carry a tiny "2001" in the lower left corner.