![]() But long before, the Crown had named him postmaster general of the American colonies in 1753, a post he shared with William Hunter. In 1775, upon his return from England, Franklin was named postmaster general of the independent colonies by the Continental Congress. Naturally, a great deal of correspondence was exchanged before 1847-the United States Post Office Department was established in 1792-but those letters were mostly paid for by the receiver.īenjamin Franklin, who along with George Washington graced the first stamps, has a fascinating history with the post, filled with intrigue. These are examples of the very first U.S. The year 1847 is a huge one for stamps: this was the first year that you could purchase stamps from the United States government and affix them to a piece of mail as a method to prepay for its delivery (the legislation was passed in 1845). 1847 Issue Block of 16 of Ben Franklinġ847 Ben Franklin stamps (courtesy of Siegel Auction Gallery) The Boston Tea Party (Credit: Ed Vebell/Getty Images) “None of the first day’s mail made it,” says Scott Trepel, president of Siegel Auction House. The pilot flew in the wrong direction and crashed in a farmer’s field, ironically next to a property owned by Otto Praeger, the postmaster official in charge of airmail. Post Office Department airmail flight on ended in disaster. ![]() The Jennies-military biplanes-were modified for government airmail service with extra fuel tanks, a different engine, and a hopper for mail. In 2016, a single Inverted Jenny sold at auction for $1,351,250. The error only appeared on a single sheet of 100 stamps, which has since been broken up, so that mostly single examples of the stamp exist, though there remain two blocks of four. A printing error caused the blue vignette-the airplane and the air around it-to be printed upside down, while the red border framing the scene was printed correctly. Philately, like many other hobbies, enjoys the self-referential: this was the first plane used to deliver mail. The plane depicted on the stamp is the JN-4HM, built by the Curtiss company in the middle of World War I (95 percent of U.S. history, the Inverted Jenny is among the most mythical.
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