US 1901 Pan-American 2c Invert

Speed, in two colors

The Pan-American issue was the first set of United States stamps of the twentieth century: six values released for the Pan-American Exposition, held in Buffalo, New York, from May 1 to November 2, 1901. Each stamp pictured a triumph of modern transportation, a steamship, a train, an electric automobile, a bridge, a canal lock and an ocean liner, and each was printed in two colors, a black picture inside a colored frame. It was the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's first try at two-color postage stamps.

The 2-cent value was the workhorse. It paid the domestic first-class letter rate, saw the greatest use of the whole issue, and was printed in enormous numbers: 209,759,700 stamps. It was also the first U.S. 2-cent stamp printed in more than one color; the next did not come until the Norse-American issue of 1925.

The set was an instant hit. Shortly after release, the New York Times reported that five to six million Pan-American stamps were being sold every day. With volume like that, and a process that needed every sheet to pass through the press twice, mistakes were all but certain.

The train and the man who engraved it

Raymond Ostrander Smith designed the set. The 2-cent picture was engraved by Marcus W. Baldwin, who had apprenticed at a bank note company, ran his own engraving firm in New York City from 1880 and joined the bureau in 1897. One of his earliest bureau engravings was the $1 Trans-Mississippi vignette, which many collectors consider the most beautiful U.S. stamp ever issued.

The caption reads "Fast Express," and the train is the Empire State Express, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad's crack passenger train between New York City and Buffalo, which many fairgoers likely rode to the exposition. The Smithsonian calls it a logical choice, since the fair was in New York State and the train was among the most modern of its day.

Which locomotive is on the stamp is disputed. A detailed study of the issue says the engraving was based on A. P. Yates's photograph of Locomotive 999, taken at Syracuse on May 10, 1893, on the run when the 999 reached 112.5 miles per hour, a speed record for a land vehicle. Another history of the issue says the engine is Locomotive 938, built in 1898, and that the 999 is often wrongly credited.

Two sheets, upside down

The stamps were printed from vignette and frame plates of 200 subjects, with the black vignettes printed first and the carmine frames second. If a sheet was turned around before the second pass, every frame came out upside down around its train. Collectors call it an inverted center, although the frame is what actually flipped.

That happened to only a tiny number of 2-cent sheets. One account says just two sheets of the error are believed to have been issued through post offices; an auction cataloger put the number sold at approximately 200 stamps, noting that two distinct shades are known. The 1-cent and 2-cent inverts were genuine accidents discovered by the public, according to the National Postal Museum, unlike the 4-cent invert, which the government printed on purpose.

Only about 80 are recorded. A 2011 census listed an intact block of four, a reconstructed block of four, 64 unused singles and 6 used singles, 72 unused in all; a 2022 account put the unused total at 74. A 2016 census of used copies counted seven, and found none of them sound: two have had perforations added, one is torn and another is thinned. One used copy carries a Brooklyn post office cancel.

Condition is the problem with this stamp. Many unused singles have disturbed gum or no gum, or are off center toward the top or top left. Assuming old auction descriptions still hold, about 45 percent of all recorded singles have faults; of the singles with Extremely Fine centering, a 2013 count found 13 sound and 9 faulty.

The Superb 98

This FLOAT 100 entry is the one copy that stands apart. It was certified genuine in 1993, previously hinged with slightly disturbed original gum from a minor hinge removal. In 2013 Professional Stamp Experts graded it Superb 98, the highest grade awarded to Scott 295a and given to no other copy; the next best grade in any category was Extremely Fine 90, held by three stamps. Its 2013 description called it "the finest recorded example of the 2-cent Pan-American invert with original gum," with superb centering, extraordinarily wide margins and long, fully formed perforations.

It was offered on October 9, 2013, in the Beverly Hills collection of United States inverts, a sale that also included the 1-cent and 4-cent Pan-American inverts. Estimated at $120,000, it sold for $190,000 at auction in New York.

Three years later a 2-cent invert described as "uniquely graded superb 98" was offered in the Hanover collection of superb-quality twentieth-century U.S. stamps on October 6, 2016, and brought $195,500. A trade report headlined the sale as the Pan-American inverts surging past the $100,000 level. Given that only one stamp holds the grade, the two sales appear to be the same stamp, though neither description says so outright.

Prices across the range

The 2-cent invert has always been the key to the set. In April 2009, at the sale of the Alan B. Whitman collection, a single sold for $90,000 and a block of four for $800,000.

Grade separates ordinary copies from exceptional ones by a wide margin. In October 2011 a well-centered unused single with a tiny perforation-tip thin, ex Maffeo, sold for $37,500 against a $55,000 estimate. On March 15, 2016, an unused single with a light crease brought $19,500, and the used Brooklyn copy, with a tear and a filled thin, $21,000. The Superb 98 sold for roughly ten times those figures.

The error was reproduced in 2001 on a centennial souvenir sheet from the original dies, with the date "2001" in the lower left corner of each copy.

The numbers

Issue date

May 1, 1901 (normal stamp)

Normal stamps printed

209,759,700 of the 2-cent value

Inverts issued

About 200 through post offices (one account: two sheets)

Recorded

72 unused and 6 used (2011 census); 74 unused (2022 account); 7 used (2016 census), none sound

Colors

Carmine frame, black vignette; two distinct shades of the error known

Printing

Engraved, two passes on flat plates of 200 subjects, cut into panes of 100; vignette printed first

Paper and perforation

Double-line USPS watermark; perforated 12

Size

1 x 1 1/8 inches (2.54 x 2.86 cm), per the National Postal Museum

Top grade

Superb 98 (one stamp); next highest XF 90 (three stamps), as of 2013

Timeline

1. May 10, 1893

   A. P. Yates photographs Locomotive 999 at Syracuse on its record 112.5 mph run; one study says this photograph is the basis of the stamp's vignette.

2. 1897

   Engraver Marcus W. Baldwin joins the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

3. May 1, 1901

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

4. 1901

   Inverted-center 2-cent stamps reach the public; perhaps two sheets, about 200 stamps, are sold through post offices.

5. 1993

   The future Superb 98 copy is certified genuine, previously hinged.

6. Mar 29, 2001

   A centennial souvenir sheet reproduces the three Pan-American inverts.

7. Apr 2009

   At the Whitman collection sale, a single brings $90,000 and a block of four $800,000.

8. Oct 13, 2011

   A well-centered unused single sells for $37,500 in New York.

9. 2013

   Professional Stamp Experts grades the copy Superb 98, the only one at that grade.

10. Oct 9, 2013

    The Superb 98 sells for $190,000 in the Beverly Hills collection of U.S. inverts.

11. Mar 15, 2016

    An unused single brings $19,500 and a used copy $21,000 in New York.

12. Oct 6, 2016

    A copy uniquely graded Superb 98 sells for $195,500 in the Hanover collection sale in New York.

13. Jun 27, 2022

    A published account records 74 unused copies of the error.

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 carried over long distances with Nikola Tesla's alternating-current system.

• Sep 5, 1901

  President McKinley gave a speech at the exposition announcing a turn from high-tariff isolation: "The period of exclusiveness is past."

• Sep 6, 1901

  McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz in the exposition's Temple of Music.

• Sep 14, 1901

  McKinley died, and Theodore Roosevelt became president.

• Oct 29, 1901

  Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair.

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 2c Invert is number 35 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 (30 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 2-cent was by far the most-used stamp of the set, more than 209 million printed, yet its invert is the rarest of the three.
• Not one of the seven recorded used copies of the error is free of faults.
• Experts still disagree over whether the locomotive on the stamp is the record-setting No. 999 or No. 938.
• The 2-cent Pan-American was the first U.S. 2-cent stamp printed in two colors; the next came in 1925.
• A single block of four sold for $800,000 in 2009, more than four times the $195,500 paid for a Superb 98 single in 2016.
• The engraver, Marcus Baldwin, also engraved the $1 Trans-Mississippi vignette, often called the most beautiful U.S. stamp.