Studying Stamps from A to Z

If you want to learn everything about stamps from A to Z, you should head to the National Postal Museum next to Union Station. In fact, you might start your study at the exhibition Alphabetilately A-Z, which takes visitors on an alphabetical history of stamps and stamp collecting.

For example, under A, the display details features of advertising covers which decorated 19th Century envelopes and postal cards with colorful images to promote company products and services.

Z, meanwhile, is for zeppelin posts. In 1908, airships, including the ill-fated Hindenburg, began carrying mail. During those years, special stamps were issued to commemorate that method of delivery.

The complete stamp alphabet display is as follows:

• A - advertising covers
• B - bisect
• C- Cinderella stamps
• D - duck stamps
• E - EFOs (errors, freaks, and oddities)
• F - firsts
• G - G stamps
• H - handstamps
• I - inverts
• J - joint issues
• K - Kansas City roulette
• L - local post
• M - Mulready
• N - numerals
• O - overprint
• P - Persian Rug
• Q - quality
• R - Railway Post Office
• S - Setenant (French for joined together)
• T - topicals
• U - Universal Postal Union
• V - Vmail
• W - war issues
• X - x (for cancel)
• Y - Yvert and Tellier (a French company that publishes catalogs of stamps for collectors)
• Z - zeppelin mail

Elvis mail: Return to Sender

As you might expect, the exhibit also features details about the invert that is the most famous stamp printing error ever made. That stamp is known as "The Inverted Jenny." The "Jenny" is actually the stamp of a blue airplane that was printed flying upside down. Inverts are supposed to be caught at printing and destroyed. However, 1 sheet of 100 Jenney upside-down-flying stamps escaped detection and they were sold in 1918 at a DC post office. The Postal Museum has 2 of the 100 stamps in its collection.

Smithsonian Sunday: World's Largest Stamp Gallery Now Open in DC

DC's Smithsonian museums (there are 17 of them here in the city) are among America's most treasured and visited places. But the Smithsonian also publishes a series of some of the most interesting, fact-filled blogs appearing anywhere on the internet. Each Sunday, The Prices Do DC re-posts an entry that initially appeared in one of those highly-readable Smithsonian blogs. Hope you enjoy and maybe see you soon at the Smithsonian.

The inverted Jenny: America's most famous stamp

Stamp collectors like nothing better than a mistake. Take for example the notorious blunder of 1918 that flipped a Curtiss Jenny aircraft upside-down on a United States 24-cent postage stamp. The so-called “Inverted Jenny” has since become America’s most famous stamp and one of the world’s most famous errors. “This is a stamp that just makes every collector’s heart beat,” says Postal Museum curator Cheryl Ganz.

On Sunday, September 22, the original Inverted Jenny goes on permanent view for the first time in Smithsonian history. Presented in a four-stamp block with three singles, the Jennies are the crown jewels of the new William H. Gross Stamp Gallery, a 12,000-square-foot addition to the Postal Museum. The gallery will feature some 20,000 philatelic objects, a handful of which are reproduced below. Curator Daniel Piazza hopes that the Jennies will become a “stop on the tour of Washington,” canonized with other great artifacts in American history.

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