The Dag Hammarskjöld invert is a 4 cent value

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...

error issued on 23 October 1962 by the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal governmen ...

(then known as the

Post Office Department The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, established in 1792. From 1872 to 1971, it was officially in the form of a Cabinet departme ...

) one year after the death of

Dag Hammarskjöld Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (English: ,; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second secretary-general of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in Septe ...

Secretary-General of the United Nations The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or UNSECGEN) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the United Nations System#Six principal organs, six principal organs of ...

, in an

airplane crash An aviation accident is an event during aircraft operation that results serious injury, death, or significant destruction. An aviation incident is any operating event that compromises safety but does not escalate into an aviation accident. Pre ...

. The stamp, showing the yellow background inverted relative to the image and text, is also known as the Day's Folly after

Postmaster General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. History The practice of having a government official ...

J. Edward Day who ordered the intentional reprinting of the yellow invert commenting, "The Post Office Department is not running a jackpot operation." The stamp reprint was in effect a deliberate error produced by the Post Office Department to avoid creating a rarity. It was decided to reprint 40 million of the inverted stamps after the discovery of the error so there would be no rarity factor in the inverted stamp and to prevent people profiting from the Postal Service's mistake. The reprints were issued to the public on 16 November and described as a ''Special Printing''. The black, brown and yellow

commemorative stamp A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The ''subject'' of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike defi ...

with yellow background correctly printed has a

Scott catalogue The Scott catalogue of postage stamps, published by Scott Publishing Company, now a subsidiary of Amos Media, is updated annually and lists all the stamps of the world that its editors recognize as issued for postal purposes. It is published in f ...

number of 1203 but the inverted error is numbered 1204. The catalogue value of the invert is worth little more than the normal. The stamp, printed on Giori press in plates of 200, was designed by Herbert Sanborn and engraved by C. A. Brooks. 121,440,000 normal stamps were printed and 40,270,000 of the inverted reprint were produced. It has not been recorded how many original invert stamps were produced and it is virtually impossible to tell a reprint from an original unless it has a clear early date, but an invert error on a

first day cover A first day of issue cover or first day cover (FDC) is a postage stamp on a cover, postal card or stamped envelope Franking, franked on the first day the issue is authorized for useBennett, Russell and Watson, James; ''Philatelic Terms Illustrate ...

, proving that stamp was from the original printing and not from the reprint, was sold in 2005 for US $3,500. The finder of the discovery sheet, a

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

jeweler named Leonard Sherman, obtained a court injunction against the reprinting, but it came too late to stop production. He did however receive an affidavit from the (then)

that his was the original sheet. In 1987 Sherman donated his sheet to the

American Philatelic Society The American Philatelic Society (APS) is the largest nonprofit stamp collecting foundation of philately in the world. Both the membership and interests of the society are worldwide. History The organization, originally named the ''American Phila ...

because the reprint dashed his hopes of owning a valuable stamp error. '' Mad'' magazine later commemorated the affair by printing a parody stamp that looked similar to the real issue, but put a crying Sherman in place of Hammarskjold with money flying away from him.

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I is for invert
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dag Hammarskjold Invert Postage stamps of the United States Postage stamp invert errors 1962 works Dag Hammarskjöld

See also

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External links