Jenny Invert block, 1¢ Z-grill traded in New York; swap completes Gross U.S. 19 th-century collection
This famed 1868 1¢ Z-grill stamp now resides in the collection of Bill Gross, who obtained the rarity Nov. 2 in a trade for Gross’s plate block of four Jenny Invert airmail error stamps, shown nearby.
Bill Gross traded this plate block of four U.S. Jenny Invert airmail stamps for an 1868 1¢ blue Benjamin Franklin stamp with a Z-grill, owned by Donald Sundman of Mystic Stamp Co., Nov. 2 in New York City. The swap allowed Gross to be the first to complete a collection of 19 th-century U.S. stamps, as such a collection has been defined since the early 1990s.
By Matthew Healey
Less than two weeks after anonymously bidding nearly $3 million at public auction for the famed United States Jenny Invert plate block, the new owner identified himself and traded the stamps away Nov. 2.
Bill Gross, well-known bond fund manager and collector of classic U.S. stamps, swapped the unique plate block of the 1918 24¢ airmail error with Donald Sundman, president of Mystic Stamp Co., in return for Sundman’s 1868 1¢ Z-grill stamp (Scott 85A) — the one stamp Gross needed to finish the most complete collection of classic 19 th-century U.S. stamps ever assembled.
The historic trade took place at the New York City office of Shreves Philatelic Galleries, 145 W. 57 th St., in Manhattan.
Charles Shreve, president of Shreves Philatelic Galleries, represented Gross.
"This was the world’s greatest trade," said Sundman, who purchased the nearly unique Z-grill stamp at auction in 1998 for $935,000, until now a record price for a single U.S. stamp.
With the trade, the value of the Z-grill appeared to more than triple, to $2.97 million, the amount Gross paid for the Jenny Invert plate block on Oct. 19.
The assumed $2.97 million value for the Z-grill stamp represents a world record value for any stamp, well more than the $2.27 million bid in 1996 for the unique Swedish 3-skilling-banco Arms yellow error-of-color stamp of 1857.
Sundman called his Z-grill "the Hope Diamond of American philately and the key to any collection. When we acquired it, it really repositioned our company — it showed our buying power."
Sundman said he expects the stamp to continue to increase in value as its true rarity is appreciated.
He added: "The rarest American stamps are undervalued and still have room to grow in price because they’re symbols of U.S. culture."
I was fortunate enough to attend the swapping ceremony that took place at Shreves’ New York galleries.
The room was packed with three television crews, several reporters and numerous philatelic VIPs, some of whom, to judge from conversations I overheard, had been underbidders at the Jenny Invert plate block auction as well as at the last Z-grill auction in 1998.
"Envious" was a word I heard several times. The media attention, unusual for a stamp event, was an indication of the momentous nature of this trade.
Tracy Shreve, co-owner of Shreves Philatelic Galleries, introduced her husband Charles Shreve, Donald Sundman and Allen Kane, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum, which will display both known examples of the 1¢ Z-grill stamp in 2006.
[Editor’s note: See the story below, left, for additional details.]
Gross was traveling on business and could not be present in person.
After very brief speeches, Shreve and Sundman smiled for photographers and ceremonially exchanged the stamps, together worth $6 million, which were encased in protective plastic.
Sundman started collecting as a child. He recently recalled how his father Maynard Sundman would sit with him and his brother David on the porch of the family home and teach them how to put hinges on stamps.
The senior Sundman started the Littleton Stamp Co., which is now the Littleton Coin Co. and run by David. Maynard Sundman, now 90, still goes to work there every day.
Bill Gross, whose PIMCO firm manages assets worth $500 billion, is by all reports a passionate stamp collector. He has been building his collection of classic U.S. stamps for more than 10 years and has won top international awards each time he exhibits it.
In an exclusive interview with Linn’s in June 2005, Gross said that he views his stamps as a relaxing hobby but that he has them costed and entered in a spreadsheet.
Charles Shreve, the stamp dealer and auctioneer who bought the plate block as agent of Gross and then arranged the trade for the Z-grill stamp, said, "His unprecedented collection dates back to the first U.S. postage stamps issued in 1847. There are about 300 different 19 thcentury U.S. stamps, and many of them are examples where as few as two or three are known to exist. Bill Gross will now have one of everything."
I asked Shreve after the swap what challenges are left for Gross, now that he has a complete 19 th-century U.S. collection.
Shreve replied, "Bill Gross is very interested in exhibiting competitively and will continue to do so. He is focusing on the 1847 issue, and he is still interested in the largest known multiples of classic stamps, whenever he can obtain them.
"And there’s also the rest of the world," Shreve added with a smile, noting that Gross is especially interested in Switzerland.
The notion of what makes a complete collection has advanced over the years.
I spoke by phone with Wilson Hulme, curator of philately at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.
Hulme said previous U.S. collections that were called complete were all missing one or more of the great rarities, in some cases because certain stamps were not recognized as distinct varieties at the time.
For example, the famous Robert Zoellner collection, auctioned by Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries in 1998, contained the Z-grill stamp now owned by Gross but was lacking the unique 1873 24¢ Continental Bank Note Co. stamp printed on ribbed paper (Scott 164), which Gross purchased in 2004.
The 24¢ Continental with ribbed paper was expertized by the Philatelic Foundation in 1992.
The collection put together almost a century ago by Benjamin K. Miller was considered complete in those days but lacked the ribbed-paper 24¢ Continental as well as the 15¢ Z-grill (Scott 85F), which had not been discovered yet, and another stamp now listed as the 3¢ B-grill (82), whose status was then considered questionable but is now known to be genuine.
The Miller collection, which was bequeathed to the New York Public Library after Miller’s death in 1928, contains the only other known example of the 1¢ Z-grill stamp.
Both 1¢ Z-grill stamps are to go on display at the same time in spring 2006 at the National Postal Museum.
Because of concerns about safe display conditions, the library has not allowed the Miller collection to be viewed since the 1970s.
Some 153 stamps in the Miller collection were stolen in 1977 and others were taken in prior years, but through the 1980s more than half of the stamps taken in the 1977 theft have been recovered.
The Jenny Invert airmail error stamp is a legend beyond the world of stamp collecting.
The blue-and-red stamp got its name from the Curtiss JN-4H biplane that was printed upside down in error. Only one 100-stamp pane came into collectors’ hands, which makes the plate block unique.
With a long and illustrious history, the stamp’s fame has made it a symbol of the charm of pioneer airmail service.
Sundman said Mystic, which has shown its 1¢ Z-grill stamp in its advertising for several years, would soon switch to using the Jenny Invert plate block instead.
The story of the 1¢ Z-grill stamp, though more obscure than the legend of the Jenny Invert, provides no less fascinating a window into the early days of American postal service.
The federal government was concerned that people would try to reuse stamps after washing off the postmark ink on canceled stamps. To make this less likely, stamp printers experimented with pressing various wafflelike rectangular grills into the stamp paper, to break the fibers and allow the canceling ink to be better absorbed.
Hulme attributed the origin of the term "Z-grill" to William Stevenson, a collector who first studied the different types of grills.
Circa 1911, Stevenson classified them chronologically by letter — A, B, C and so on.
One of the scarcer grills, a rectangle measuring 11 millimeters by 14 mm, Stevenson couldn’t place in time, so he dubbed it the Z-grill. Later experts placed the Z-grill somewhere between E and F in the chronology, but the name Z-grill stuck.
"One and possibly both of the 1¢ Z-grill stamps belonged to Stevenson," Hulme said. "Miller acquired one, which ended up in the New York Public Library, and the other came on the market in the 1960s."
No one knows how many 1¢ Z-grill stamps were made. Hulme says it might have been 1,000.
Because the letter rate at the time was 3¢, most would have been used on circulars and thrown away.
Bill Gross traded this plate block of four U.S. Jenny Invert airmail stamps for an 1868 1¢ blue Benjamin Franklin stamp with a Z-grill, owned by Donald Sundman of Mystic Stamp Co., Nov. 2 in New York City. The swap allowed Gross to be the first to complete a collection of 19 th-century U.S. stamps, as such a collection has been defined since the early 1990s.
This famed 1868 1¢ Z-grill stamp now resides in the collection of Bill Gross, who obtained the rarity Nov. 2 in a trade for Gross’s plate block of four Jenny Invert airmail error stamps, shown nearby.