The post office plans to compound an error - on purpose - selling lots of loused-up stamps so the handful sold by mistake won't be so rare and valuable.
The Postal Service had planned to destroy all 5.2 million sheets of the Legends of the West stamps after it was discovered that the wrong person was pictured on the stamp honoring cowboy Bill Pickett.But 183 sheets of the stamps were sold by error before they could be recalled. That created a stamp rarity and some of the sheets have already been sold at auction for $2,000 or more.
However, the post office has maintained a policy of never deliberately creating a stamp rarity, so officials decided to release some of the incorrect sheets.
"The inadvertent sale of 183 sheets of the Legends stamps created an unintended rarity in the marketplace, making it expensive for collectors to maintain a complete stamp collection," said Sam Winters, chairman of the Postal Service's Board of Governors.
"The sale of 150,000 sheets of the recalled stamps gives everyone a chance to own a collectible," he said.