US 1901 Pan-American 4c Invert

An electric car on a stamp

The Pan-American issue of 1901 was the first set of U.S. stamps of the twentieth century, six two-color stamps released for the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, which ran from May 1 to November 2, 1901. Every value pictured fast, modern transportation, and the 4-cent showed the newest of all: an automobile. The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum notes it was the first U.S. 4-cent stamp printed in more than one color, and that it typically paid double the 2-cent first-class rate. The bureau printed 5,737,100 of the normal stamp.

The car is no generic machine. Marcus Baldwin's engraving copies an illustration of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's electric cab service, which carried passengers between the railroad's stations and points around the city. A detailed study of the issue says the service began in Washington on April 1, 1900, and spread to Philadelphia, Chicago and New York over the next five months; another history gives the Washington start as May 1, 1900, run with the Washington Electric Vehicle Transportation Company, and says the picture came from the September 1900 issue of the railroad's monthly magazine. The building behind the cab is the U.S. Capitol.

That made the stamp, in one study's words, an unusual and perhaps unethical choice. The figure in the cab is identified as Samuel Hege, the B&O's passenger agent, which would mean the stamp pictured a living person contrary to law and gave the railroad free advertising for its new service. Sources give his middle initial variously as P. and B.; one history calls him Samuel Bitner Hege. The same history credits the stamp as the first anywhere to picture an automobile.

Edwin Madden's invert

Edwin C. Madden served as Third Assistant Postmaster General from 1899 to 1907. He came from Detroit, where he had been a fireman and then an engineer on the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railroad, and his rise owed much to Michigan's governor, Russell Alger. A 1900 profile celebrated him as a messenger boy who had risen by "perseverance and pluck," and he made real improvements to the mail, including letter-carrier registration that spared customers a trip to the post office.

After the 1-cent and 2-cent inverts were discovered in 1901, Madden set out to track down any other errors. In late summer his assistant told the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to send any inverted Pan-American stamps it had to Madden's office. The bureau had none. Rather than say so, it read the request as an order for inverts and printed them from the 4-cent plates. The National Postal Museum puts it plainly: the 4-cent invert was created intentionally after it was erroneously reported that the public had found one.

How many were made is reported differently. One general account says four sheets were produced and 400 stamps sent to Madden; a 2014 auction study says the reported quantity was two sheets of 200, 400 stamps, but that it had identified at least four separate sheets of 100 from their bottom margins, and that only the lower halves seem to have been gummed and perforated. The word "Specimen" was then handstamped in purple on about half of them.

Gifts, a scandal and a museum trade

Between 1901 and 1904 Madden gave the inverts away. His gift list survives. According to one study it shows the recipients were mainly political allies and elected officials, among them Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, Attorney General Philander C. Knox, George Cortelyou, then secretary to President Roosevelt, and two future vice presidents. Michigan congressman Edgar Weeks received his on February 15, 1902. One entry, "J. H. Hige... B&O Railroad... December 20, 1901," may well be Samuel Hege, the man pictured on the stamp.

The count of gifts differs by source: 172 plus one Madden kept for himself (one general account), 173 (a 2016 auction study) or 186 "specimen" inverts (a study of Madden's gift list). Most carried the "Specimen" handstamp, but at least 23 did not.

News of the giveaways brought charges of impropriety and an investigation ordered by the Postmaster General. Madden was cleared because no money had changed hands. According to auction studies, postal authorities destroyed 194 copies and put one pane of 100 into the Government Collection at the national museum in Washington.

That pane did not stay whole. A curator, identified in one history as Joseph B. Leavy and dated to 1914, used a rule allowing duplicates to be swapped and traded 97 of the inverts to stamp dealers for rarities the museum lacked, including inverts of the 1869 issue. Because those 97 had been mounted on an album page, most surviving unoverprinted copies are thinned or have badly disturbed gum.

Telling them apart

A 296a shows the deep red brown frame right side up and the black car upside down. Copies with the small purple "Specimen" handstamp are cataloged separately as 296a-S and sell for a fraction of the price of stamps without it. One overprinted copy has a cancellation that a cataloger suggested was applied by favor or fraudulently to hide the handstamp.

Specialists have reconstructed the printing. The plate number is 1145, and plate letters that normally appear in the top margin show up in the bottom margin instead, and their sequence helps sort the sheets. Imprint and plate-number copies have been traced to four different sheets, designated S1 to S4; on some, from the sheet called S1 Left, the car's wheels touch the brown frame because the vignette is shifted.

Seven blocks of four are recorded; one has not been seen since the 1944 sale of Colonel Edward H. R. Green's collection and one not since 1970. Condition is the great obstacle: the best overprinted copies are rare, and one 2016 description called most examples "shockingly poor" from rough handling over many years.

This FLOAT 100 entry is an unoverprinted copy graded Extremely Fine 90 by Professional Stamp Experts. As of 2013 only one single had reached that grade, above a plate-number copy at Very Fine 80 and two stamps at Fine 70.

Prices

The finest copy with the imprint and plate number in the bottom margin, bearing the small "W.H.C." handstamp of Warren H. Colson on the back and from the collection of John F. Odeneal, sold for $300,000 before premium on October 3, 2007. When it came back in the Beverly Hills collection of U.S. inverts on October 9, 2013, graded VF 80, it brought $130,000 against a $75,000 estimate.

In April 2009 the Alan B. Whitman collection sold a single for $90,000 and a well-centered block of four, with thin spots, for $325,000 before premium. In 2015 another block, ex Lilly, with the shifted wheels of the S1 Left sheet, sold for $250,000. A block with minor faults, whose previous whereabouts were not stated, sold for $126,500 at auction in Chicago on February 15, 2017.

Ordinary copies trade far lower. In October 2011 an unoverprinted copy with a thin spot sold for $29,000 and a "Specimen" copy for $5,250, and on March 15, 2016 they brought $10,000 and $7,000. On October 6, 2016, the XF 90 copy from the Hanover collection sold for $120,750 at auction in New York, one of the results a trade report headlined as the Pan-American inverts surging past $100,000.

The numbers

Issue date

Normal stamp May 1, 1901; inverts printed 1901 as a special printing, never sold at post offices

Normal stamps printed

5,737,100 of the 4-cent value

Inverts printed

Reported as 400; at least four sheets of 100 identified

Given away by Madden

172 to 186, depending on the source; at least 23 without overprint

Museum pane

100 placed in the national collection; 97 later traded

Blocks of four

Seven recorded

Colors

Deep red brown frame, black vignette

Paper and perforation

Double-line USPS watermark; perforated 12; plate number 1145

Top grade

XF 90 (one single as of 2013)

Timeline

1. 1899

   Edwin C. Madden becomes Third Assistant Postmaster General.

2. Apr 1, 1900

   The B&O's electric cab service begins in Washington, per one study (another history says May 1, 1900).

3. May 1, 1901

   The normal 4-cent Pan-American stamp goes on sale with the rest of the set.

4. 1901

   After the 1-cent and 2-cent inverts are found, Madden's office asks for any invert stock; the bureau prints 4-cent inverts on purpose.

5. Dec 20, 1901

   A gift to "J. H. Hige... B&O Railroad," likely Samuel Hege, is recorded on Madden's list.

6. Feb 15, 1902

   Michigan congressman Edgar Weeks receives a 4-cent invert from Madden.

7. 1904

   Madden's recorded giveaways of the inverts run through this year; an investigation into them cleared him because no money changed hands.

8. 1907

   Madden's term as Third Assistant Postmaster General ends.

9. 1914

   The museum's pane of 100 is broken up and 97 inverts are traded to dealers for missing rarities.

10. 1944

    A block of four last appears in the sale of Colonel Green's collection.

11. Oct 3, 2007

    The finest plate-number single sells for $300,000 before premium.

12. Apr 2009

    Whitman collection: a single brings $90,000 and a block of four $325,000.

13. Oct 9, 2013

    The plate-number single sells for $130,000 in the Beverly Hills collection of U.S. inverts.

14. Oct 6, 2016

    An XF 90 single from the Hanover collection sells for $120,750 in New York.

15. Feb 15, 2017

    A block of four sells for $126,500 at auction in Chicago.

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.

• Sep 6, 1901

  President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz at the exposition's Temple of Music; he died on September 14.

• Sep 14, 1901

  Theodore Roosevelt became president; Madden's invert recipients would include Roosevelt's secretary, George Cortelyou.

• Oct 29, 1901

  Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair.

• Jan 1902

  Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith, whose department had been marred by influence-peddling and kickback scandals, was succeeded by Henry C. Payne.

• 1905

  Samuel Hege, the B&O agent believed to be pictured on the stamp, served on the committee for Roosevelt's inauguration.

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 4c Invert is number 42 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 (31 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 4-cent invert exists only because the printing bureau misunderstood a request for inverts it did not have.
• Madden's gift list includes Henry Cabot Lodge, Philander Knox and two future vice presidents.
• The man in the cab on the stamp appears to have received one of the inverts himself.
• The Smithsonian once owned a full pane of 100 and traded 97 of them for stamps it was missing.
• On the inverts, the vignette plate letters normally found in the top margin turn up in the bottom margin.
• A "Specimen" copy can sell for a small fraction of the price of one without the handstamp.