The Inverted Swan, a 4-pence blue postage stamp issued in 1855 by

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, was one of the world's first

invert error In philately, an invert error occurs when part of a stamp is printed upside-down. Inverts are perhaps the most spectacular of postage stamp errors, not only because of their striking visual appearance, but because some are quite rare, and highly ...

s. Technically, it is the frame that is inverted, not the image of the swan, but it has become commonly known as the Inverted Swan. In 1854, Western Australia issued its first stamps, featuring the colony's symbol, the black swan, as did all WA stamps until 1902. While the 1d black was engraved in Great Britain by

Perkins Bacon Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co was a printer of books, bank notes and postage stamps, most notable for printing the Penny Black, the world's first adhesive postage stamps, in 1840. {{Infobox , above = Details on the mode of preventing the forgery o ...

, other values, including the 4d blue, were produced by Horace Samson in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

using

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

, and with different frames around the swan design for each value.

The error

In January 1855, additional 4d stamps were needed. When Alfred Hillman brought the printing stone out of storage, he found that two of the impressions had been damaged, so he had to redo them. One of the replaced frames was tilted; the other was accidentally redone upside-down. The stone's block of 60 was transferred four times to make the printing stone, and 97 sheets were printed before Hillman discovered the mistake and corrected it, resulting in a total of 388 errors being printed. However, the errors went unrecognised and unreported for several years. Only 15 complete copies, plus a part of a stamp in a strip of three, have survived. No unused copies are known. One example was discovered in Ireland in the 1860s, acquired by the

Duke of Leinster Duke of Leinster (; ) is a title in the Peerage of Ireland and the premier dukedom in that peerage. The subsidiary titles of the Duke of Leinster are: Marquess of Kildare (1761), Earl of Kildare (1316), Earl of Offaly (1761), Viscount Leinster, ...

, and bequeathed to Ireland in 1897. It is on display at a museum in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

. It was on displayed in 1890 at

Royal Philatelic Society London The Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL) is the oldest philatelic society in the world. It was founded on 10 April 1869 as ''The Philatelic Society, London''. The society runs a postal museum, the Spear Museum of Philatelic History, at its he ...

's first

philatelic exhibition A philatelic exhibition is an exhibition of stamps and postal history where stamp collectors (philatelists) compete for medals. The displays are shown in glass frames, and the exhibition is normally accompanied by stamp dealer bourses and post ...

. Other examples are in the Royal Collection, the

Tapling Collection The Tapling Collection of postage stamps was donated to the British Museum from the estate of Thomas Tapling in 1891. The probate value of the Tapling collection was set at £12,000 but on arrival Richard Garnett (assistant keeper of Printed Book ...

of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, and at museums in Sydney, and

, in addition to private collections. Copies of this stamp have been sold over the years such as, a 1980 auction realisation US$80,000, for $37,500 in 1983 and for £122,400 in a

Spink Spink may refer to: * Spink, County Laois, a village in Ireland * Spink County, South Dakota, US * Spink Township, Union County, South Dakota, US * Spink & Son, a UK auction and collectibles company * Spink GAA, a Gaelic football club in Ireland ...

auction on 19 May 2015.

References

{{reflist

Sources

* ''Philatelic Gems 1''. Amos Press, 1989. Birds on stamps History of Western Australia 1855 in Australia Postage stamps of Australia Postage stamp invert errors 1855 works

The error

See also

References

Sources