Best of luck! Let us know how it goes!
-Ernie
Here's hoping you have a REAL nice and upright birthday!
It was not upright but still beautiful!
They are nice aren't they! I bought ten, and only open one when I need the stamps. So far, I have only opened one.
-Steve
Big bruhaha brewing over the upright Jenny in a report by the USPS Inspector General.
70 of the sheets were sent out to post offices (to the largest USPS market places - term not disclosed by USPS), and 30 to the Stamp Fulfillment Center. The 30 were kept locked in a safe, and were eventually forgotten about.
The plan was to ship out one upright sheet a week from the fulfillment center. They forgot to do that. Up to 23 sheets still remain at the fulfillment center.
There is talk of recalling the upright sheets from the post offices, but it isn't known where they all are. That would require USPS staff to open all the unsold sheets (about 50%, or 600,000 remain unsold) to find the upright ones. - Yeah when they find them the upright sheets will be sent back by USPS staff.
What a mess this is turning out to be.
Which is why I have no interest in current stamps. I'm like Rip Van Winkle, having stopped looking new stamps around 1980. I've since bought commemoratives for my mail, and have seen various stamps over the years on my incoming mail. Recently I took a look at a current catalog and saw the stamps that have been issued in the past 35 years.
I will say that back in the 1970s there was concern that the USPS was issuing too many stamps, and stamps of dubious commemoration, just to make money. That was when the first issue of the 50 state flags came out. I can see that our concerns went unheeded! A lot of the stamps I see have little value and the sets are too long. I can only imagine the cash outlay (even at face value) for me to obtain this stuff would be way more than the enjoyment factor for me. And we all know there's no investment value!
Michael, here's a link to the Postal IG story in Linn's:
http://www.linns.com/en/news/postal-news/2015/july/postal-service-ig-criticizes-creation--distribution-of-upright-j.html
-Steve
Interesting. I read the article that Steve posted including some of the comments. Some are calling for the USPS to print up a massive amount of the upright Jennie panes similar to the Dag Hammerschold stamps to blunt the error factor.
What do members here think about that?
Bruce
What's done (or wasn't done) is done. I say pretty much leave well enough (or bad enough) alone. Almost anything USPS does to try to make amends will likely just make everything worse.
Just let the thing run its course and stick as much as possible to the original public statements until the time they normally would get recalled.
The only thing I can think of is when it comes time to send the unsold Jenny panes back, have them all sent to the Cave. Mix the upright Jenny panes arbitrarily in the inventory (doesn't even have to be perfectly random), and just keep selling them from that inventory in the years to come. It's not like they are 1¢ stamps. And, it's good news for the collecting world when 1-2 upright Jenny panes keep popping up each year.
Just a thought.
To follow up on Bruce's post (2 above), the USPS Office of the Inspector General has opened up a blog for comments on their recent report on the controversies regarding the creation and non-random distribution of the upright Jenny panes. Here's your chance to give them kudos or rant" Jenny Come Lately.
The Fulfillment Center dropped the ball. The upright sheets were stored in a locker and mostly forgotten about. I was informed today by my contact at the post office that the inverted sheets are back on sale at the Fulfillment Center. They were never off-sale at the post offices.
If the Fulfillment Center releases the remaining upright sheets that they have (17 I think was the count?), that will re-generate sales activity. By not releasing the upright sheets on the intended schedule, collector interest quickly waned, and now almost two years later they have sold only about half of the sheets.
The biggest problem in my opinion was the denomination. I cleaned out my local PO and it will take me a long time to burn through the $2 stamps! I use two when I send something Priority Mail, but I still have about 10 panes of 6 and I don't send much by Priority Mail.
I do send quite a bit of International mail, so when Global Forever goes up to $2 I will finally be able to unload them I guess.
As to what they should do with the balance of the upright panes: My suggestion would be a lottery similar the Legends of the West Error pane. Ship all of the upright panes back to the Cave. Let anybody order as many panes as they wish from the Cave. Take all of the upright panes and add enough normal panes to equal the total number ordered. Use a random number generator to assign the upright panes to the orders. That's about as fair as you can make it and achieve resolution in a reasonable amount of time.
I personally don't care. I do not consider them legitimate postage stamps. I would still place an order for one or two in hopes of finding an upright pane, but I would sell it immediately and fill some real holes in my collection!
Lars
I'm not a fan of this obvious gimmick by USPS to feed off collectors greed. How many Wonka Bars do you need to eat to get a Golden Ticket?
What they have done is create a modern rarity that insures that nobody will ever be able to complete their US modern collections. And that will cause people to lose interest in US stamps. A disservice to the hobby!
Wish me luck, have been holding on to this to open for my birthday!
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
Best of luck! Let us know how it goes!
-Ernie
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
Here's hoping you have a REAL nice and upright birthday!
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
It was not upright but still beautiful!
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
They are nice aren't they! I bought ten, and only open one when I need the stamps. So far, I have only opened one.
-Steve
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
Big bruhaha brewing over the upright Jenny in a report by the USPS Inspector General.
70 of the sheets were sent out to post offices (to the largest USPS market places - term not disclosed by USPS), and 30 to the Stamp Fulfillment Center. The 30 were kept locked in a safe, and were eventually forgotten about.
The plan was to ship out one upright sheet a week from the fulfillment center. They forgot to do that. Up to 23 sheets still remain at the fulfillment center.
There is talk of recalling the upright sheets from the post offices, but it isn't known where they all are. That would require USPS staff to open all the unsold sheets (about 50%, or 600,000 remain unsold) to find the upright ones. - Yeah when they find them the upright sheets will be sent back by USPS staff.
What a mess this is turning out to be.
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
Which is why I have no interest in current stamps. I'm like Rip Van Winkle, having stopped looking new stamps around 1980. I've since bought commemoratives for my mail, and have seen various stamps over the years on my incoming mail. Recently I took a look at a current catalog and saw the stamps that have been issued in the past 35 years.
I will say that back in the 1970s there was concern that the USPS was issuing too many stamps, and stamps of dubious commemoration, just to make money. That was when the first issue of the 50 state flags came out. I can see that our concerns went unheeded! A lot of the stamps I see have little value and the sets are too long. I can only imagine the cash outlay (even at face value) for me to obtain this stuff would be way more than the enjoyment factor for me. And we all know there's no investment value!
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
Michael, here's a link to the Postal IG story in Linn's:
http://www.linns.com/en/news/postal-news/2015/july/postal-service-ig-criticizes-creation--distribution-of-upright-j.html
-Steve
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
Interesting. I read the article that Steve posted including some of the comments. Some are calling for the USPS to print up a massive amount of the upright Jennie panes similar to the Dag Hammerschold stamps to blunt the error factor.
What do members here think about that?
Bruce
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
What's done (or wasn't done) is done. I say pretty much leave well enough (or bad enough) alone. Almost anything USPS does to try to make amends will likely just make everything worse.
Just let the thing run its course and stick as much as possible to the original public statements until the time they normally would get recalled.
The only thing I can think of is when it comes time to send the unsold Jenny panes back, have them all sent to the Cave. Mix the upright Jenny panes arbitrarily in the inventory (doesn't even have to be perfectly random), and just keep selling them from that inventory in the years to come. It's not like they are 1¢ stamps. And, it's good news for the collecting world when 1-2 upright Jenny panes keep popping up each year.
Just a thought.
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
To follow up on Bruce's post (2 above), the USPS Office of the Inspector General has opened up a blog for comments on their recent report on the controversies regarding the creation and non-random distribution of the upright Jenny panes. Here's your chance to give them kudos or rant" Jenny Come Lately.
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
The Fulfillment Center dropped the ball. The upright sheets were stored in a locker and mostly forgotten about. I was informed today by my contact at the post office that the inverted sheets are back on sale at the Fulfillment Center. They were never off-sale at the post offices.
If the Fulfillment Center releases the remaining upright sheets that they have (17 I think was the count?), that will re-generate sales activity. By not releasing the upright sheets on the intended schedule, collector interest quickly waned, and now almost two years later they have sold only about half of the sheets.
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
The biggest problem in my opinion was the denomination. I cleaned out my local PO and it will take me a long time to burn through the $2 stamps! I use two when I send something Priority Mail, but I still have about 10 panes of 6 and I don't send much by Priority Mail.
I do send quite a bit of International mail, so when Global Forever goes up to $2 I will finally be able to unload them I guess.
As to what they should do with the balance of the upright panes: My suggestion would be a lottery similar the Legends of the West Error pane. Ship all of the upright panes back to the Cave. Let anybody order as many panes as they wish from the Cave. Take all of the upright panes and add enough normal panes to equal the total number ordered. Use a random number generator to assign the upright panes to the orders. That's about as fair as you can make it and achieve resolution in a reasonable amount of time.
I personally don't care. I do not consider them legitimate postage stamps. I would still place an order for one or two in hopes of finding an upright pane, but I would sell it immediately and fill some real holes in my collection!
Lars
re: Opening my inverted jenny stamp now
I'm not a fan of this obvious gimmick by USPS to feed off collectors greed. How many Wonka Bars do you need to eat to get a Golden Ticket?
What they have done is create a modern rarity that insures that nobody will ever be able to complete their US modern collections. And that will cause people to lose interest in US stamps. A disservice to the hobby!