These three stamps are numbered in order of denomination rather than chronologically. Special Delivery was still available, but was to be paid with a ten cent Special Delivery stamp. Covers bearing the First Day cancellation of the new rate, July 15, 1918, bring a premium, but are nowhere near as scarce or valuable as covers dated July 11, of which only three are known.įinally, on December 10, about five months later, the six cent stamp was issued to pay for air mail service without special delivery, when it was decided that an air mail letter could be handled as a first class letter for the "ground" portion of the delivery. Since the reduced rate did not go into effect until July 15, the July 11 First Day Covers necessarily included an additional eight cents postage. On July 11, less than two months after the twenty-four cent was issued, the sixteen cent stamp was released to reflect a rate drop in the air mail fee from 14¢ to 6¢, meaning the new rate would be 16¢, including the 10¢ special delivery fee. Johl states that, of these one hundred stamps, thirteen were somehow lost by the great collector Colonel Green, leaving a balance of 87 stamps. When the collector who was inadvertently given the error sheet went back to ask for any others like it, the postal clerk immediately realized his error and, although unable to retrieve the one he had sold, was able to inform higher-ups of the error and no further error stamps were released. What we find most interesting about the error, is that the only sheet so issued was issued on the first day, May 13, 1918. Much has been written about this error, and we will not repeat it here. stamp, the "upside down airplane stamp", also known as the "inverted jenny". The 24¢ stamp has the distinction of bringing about perhaps the most famous U.S. Since this was a new service the stamp was issued in a distinguishing bi-colored format, in the patriotic colors – red, white and blue.
The rate was to be 24¢ per ounce, 14¢ for the "air" portion and 10¢ for the special delivery fee. By 1918, only seven years later, the Post Office Department had authorized carrying mail via airplane as well as a stamp to promote this air travel.
On September 25, 1911, Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock presided over the first "official" air mail flight, a flight of only a few miles from Garden City Park to Mineola, on Long Island, N.Y. The "Curtiss Jenny" Air Mail Stamps of 1918
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