Rare Stamp May Be on Envelope in Florida Ballot Box
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Nov. 11 -- An absentee ballot was mailed with what may have been a valuable, extremely rare stamp, but the envelope is now in a box that by law cannot be opened before September 2008.
While reviewing absentee ballots Tuesday night, Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom noticed what looked like a small stamp collection on one envelope. There was no name on the envelope, so the vote contained inside did not count.
At least one of the stamps was from 1936, Rodstrom said later. But another really caught his eye: It had an upside-down World War I-era airplane -- the hallmark of a stamp known among collectors as the Inverted Jenny.
The 24-cent Jenny stamps were printed in 1918. Sheets were run through presses twice to process all the colors and, on one pass, four went through backward. Inspectors caught the errors on three sheets and destroyed them, but one sheet of 100 stamps escaped into circulation.
Stamp collectors have spent 88 years trying to find them all.
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While reviewing absentee ballots Tuesday night, Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom noticed what looked like a small stamp collection on one envelope. There was no name on the envelope, so the vote contained inside did not count.
At least one of the stamps was from 1936, Rodstrom said later. But another really caught his eye: It had an upside-down World War I-era airplane -- the hallmark of a stamp known among collectors as the Inverted Jenny.
The 24-cent Jenny stamps were printed in 1918. Sheets were run through presses twice to process all the colors and, on one pass, four went through backward. Inspectors caught the errors on three sheets and destroyed them, but one sheet of 100 stamps escaped into circulation.
Stamp collectors have spent 88 years trying to find them all.