Rare 'Inverted Jenny' Stamp Turns Up 60 Years After Theft 
 
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 In 1955, a block of four rare postage stamps was stolen from a display case at a convention. While two were recovered over 30 years ago, there had been no sign of the others until this one was submitted to a New York auction house this month and authenticated. Considered America's most famous stamp,... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — Opening a new chapter in an infamous stamp-world mystery, a valuable "inverted Jenny" stamp has surfaced six decades after it was stolen from a collectors' convention. "It's one of the most notorious crimes in philatelic history, and there's a piece of the puzzle now that's in place," said Scott English, the administrator of the American Philatelic Research Library, which owns the stamp and is working with auctioneers Spink USA and federal authorities to recover it. As NPR reported eight years ago when another "inverted Jenny" hit the auction block, the red and blue stamps bearing an "upside-down image of a Curtiss JN-4H biplane" existed because of a printing mistake. The would-be consigner, a man in his 20s who lives in the United Kingdom, said he'd inherited the stamp from his grandfather and knew little about it, said George Eveleth, head of Spink USA's philatelic department. When Castelli tried to sell the stamp again some 20 years later, the FBI seized it, the newspaper wrote.
– An incredibly rare and valuable stamp stolen right out of its exhibition frame at a 1955 convention resurfaced this month in New York and has promptly rocked the philatelic world. "Inverted Jenny" stamps are considered the most famous in America: A printing accident in 1918 produced a single sheet of 100 of the stamps, each featuring an upside-down Curtiss JN-4H biplane, NPR explains. In 1955, someone swiped a block of four from the collection of Ethel Stewart McCoy, whose father was a Dow Jones founder. It is "one of the most notorious crimes in philatelic history," Scott English, administrator of the American Philatelic Research Library, tells the AP. The stamp was submitted this month to New York auction house Spink USA by an unnamed man in his 20s who hails from the UK and says he inherited it from his grandfather; it's unclear if he knew it was stolen. A press release from Spink USA states that the inverted Jenny was "determined to be position 76 in the pane of 100 subjects"—the one in the bottom right of the block of four stolen. Identification took some sleuthing: In a long-ago attempt to disguise it, the stamp "had been reperforated at right and most of the gum was removed, so the pencil position numbers written on the gummed side had been lost." Positions 75 and 65 turned up in 1958 and 1982, respectively, and the new discovery leaves only one of the four stolen stamps unaccounted for. (In 2014, a dealer offered a $50,000 reward for the missing inverted Jennies.) The American Philatelic Research Library at the American Philatelic Society was given rights to the stamps by McCoy, who died in 1980, and is working with the auction house to take possession of the stamp. (By one measure, this stamp is the most expensive thing ever sold.)