USPS Stamp Fails

USPS

The Postal Service just can't catch a break, man.  Back in December, they released new stamps featuring the Statue of Liberty.  And now, a stamp-collecting magazine has pointed out that the Lady Liberty featured in the photo isn’t the one that has spent the last 125 years in New York Harbor, rather it’s a 14-year-old replica which currently sits in front of the New York-New York casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In real life, the casino Statue of Liberty is only half the size of the original. However, it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the two in the photo on the stamp.

In fact, it wasn’t until an eagle-eyed stamp collector noticed that there were some subtle differences in Lady Liberty’s facial features that the Postal Service realized something was amiss.

The post office has no plans to replacing the stamp, so it isn’t likely to become a collector’s item.  Read on for a few more famous postage stamp blunders.

The “Inverted Jenny” is the most famous of postal stamp errors.  As you can see, the Curtis JN-4 airplane in the photo is upside down.  Only 100 Inverted Jenny’s were ever printed, and the stamp is worth close to $1 million.

USPS

The yellow background in this 1962 stamp commemorating United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjod is inverted.

USPS

The stamp is valueless, however, because Post Master general at the time J. Edward Day ordered that the stamp continue to be produced uncorrected because “The Post Office Department is not running a jackpot operation.”

Back in 1932, the Philippines was a territory of the United States.  But we obviously didn’t know a lot about its geography, as this stamp, which purports to be a representation of Pagsanjan Falls, is actually an image of Vernal Fall in Yosemite National Park, California.

USPS

[NY Times]