Lot 2434
1871-72, Second Issue $5 & Third Issue 30¢ & $1 "Henn" Inverted Centers, $5 and 30¢ values with manuscript cancels, 30¢ with additional manuscript re-tracing over the essay vignette, $1 appears unused, each showing slight scuffing (when held to the light) of central oval from some of the removal of original vignettes; $5 with small internal hole well away from vignette area, F.-V.F., a remarkable assembly of these extremely rare inverted center revenue issues.Scott No. R127, R140, R144 Estimate $3,000 - 4,000.
These uniquely devised forgeries where described by Elliot Perry in his publication Pat Paragraphs as coming from the so-called Henn Collection and where at one time though to be genuine. It is suggested that in about 1903, when the old Toppan, Carpenter & Co. bed pieces containing essay designs for the U.S. postage stamps of 1861 (as altered from the stamp designs of 1851-60) were sold, that at least four "essay heads" of Washington went into private hands and were used to create illegitimate inverted medallions on U.S. revenue documentary and general issue proprietary series of 1871-74…The portraits on those revenue stamps were purposely printed in a fugitive black ink which can be bleached, On the blank medallion space so obtained one of the old essay heads was printed upside down, thus creating for stamp collectors quite fraudulent "varieties" of which no part is actually counterfeit.