If you’ve ever found a weird misprint on a grocery receipt or a typo in a book, you usually just shrug and move on. But in the high-stakes world of philately—the fancy word for stamp collecting—a mistake is basically a winning lottery ticket. Usually. Back in 1962, the United States Post Office made a massive blunder with the Dag Hammarskjold postage stamp, and then they did something that made collectors absolutely furious. They fixed it. But they didn’t just fix the machines; they intentionally printed millions of "errors" to make sure the original mistake was worth nothing. It’s one of the weirdest spite-moves in government history.
The Man Behind the Stamp
First, you’ve gotta understand who Dag Hammarskjold actually was. He wasn’t just some bureaucrat. He was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, a Swedish diplomat who basically lived for peace. He died in a mysterious plane crash in 1961 while on a peace mission in the Congo. People were devastated. He’s still the only person to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. To honor him, the U.S. Post Office decided to issue a commemorative 4-cent stamp on October 23, 1962.
The design was simple. It featured Hammarskjold’s face, the UN building in New York, and a yellow background. Or, it was supposed to be a yellow background.
That Infamous Yellow Inversion
Here is where things get messy. Postage stamps are often printed in multiple passes. One color goes on, then another. On at least one sheet of the 4-cent Hammarskjold issue, the yellow plate was inverted. This meant the yellow background was shifted, leaving a white border where there shouldn't be one and placing the yellow ink over the wrong parts of the design.
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A jeweler from New Jersey named Leonard Sherman bought a few panes of these stamps. He looked at them and realized something was off. The yellow was all wrong. He had found a legitimate "invert" error. In the stamp world, this is the Holy Grail. Think of the "Inverted Jenny" with the upside-down airplane—those things are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sherman figured he was sitting on a gold mine. He even contacted the Post Office to let them know, probably thinking they’d be impressed.
They weren't.
The Postmaster General's Revenge
The Postmaster General at the time was a guy named J. Edward Day. He didn't like the idea of a single collector getting rich off a government mistake. He thought it was "unfair" for a clerical error to create an instant rarity. So, Day made a decision that still makes old-school collectors grind their teeth. He ordered the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to intentionally reprint 40 million of the "error" stamps.
By flooding the market with the mistake, he made the mistake common. If everyone has a "rare" stamp, nobody has a rare stamp.
Imagine you find a rare Pokémon card that’s a misprint, and then the company says, "Oh, neat," and immediately prints 10 million more of that exact misprint just to spite you. That’s basically what happened with the Dag Hammarskjold postage stamp. Sherman actually tried to sue the government to stop the re-release. He lost. The government’s argument was that they had a duty to provide stamps to the public and that "artificially" high prices for errors weren't in the public interest.
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How to Tell the Difference (Sort of)
You might be wondering if you can tell a "real" error from the "intentional" error. Honestly? It's tough. Because they used the same plates and the same ink, the 40 million intentional reprints look identical to the few hundred original mistakes Leonard Sherman found.
The only real way to distinguish them is by the "plate number" on the corner of the sheet or by the date of the postmark. If you have a Dag Hammarskjold stamp with a shifted yellow background postmarked before the mass re-printing began in late 1962, you might have something special. But for the most part, the market value of these stamps plummeted to just a few cents or dollars because of J. Edward Day’s intervention.
Collectors call the mass-produced version "Day’s Folly."
Why the Dag Hammarskjold Postage Stamp Still Matters Today
Even though it’s not worth a million dollars, this stamp is a legendary piece of postal history. It represents a moment where the government stepped in to manipulate a hobby market. It also highlights the incredible life of Hammarskjold himself.
If you're looking to start a collection, this is actually a great "story" stamp to own. You can usually find the "Special Printing" (the intentional error) for very little money on sites like eBay or at local stamp shows. It’s a conversation starter. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the government will go to great lengths to make sure you don't get lucky.
Facts Most People Get Wrong
People often get confused and think the entire image is upside down. It’s not. It’s just the yellow background plate that’s shifted or inverted. If you look at a normal version next to the error version, the most obvious sign is the white glow or "halo" around the UN building and the black text.
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Another misconception is that these stamps are "illegal" to own. Not at all. They were sold over the counter at post offices across the country. In fact, for a while, you could just walk in and ask for the "messed up" one.
Actionable Steps for Collectors
If you happen to find a Dag Hammarskjold postage stamp in an old album, here is exactly what you should do to figure out what you’ve got:
- Check the Color Alignment: Look at the yellow area. If there is a white gap between the yellow and the other colors, or if the yellow seems to be "bleeding" into the margins, you have the error version (Scott #1204).
- Look for the Plate Number: If you have a full pane (a sheet of 50), look for the number printed in the margin. Plate number 27282 is the one associated with the "error" printing.
- Verify the Postmark: Check the date. The original error was discovered in early November 1962. The mass-produced "intentional" errors hit post offices shortly after. A postmark from October 1962 with the error would be a massive find.
- Don't Clean It: If the stamp is on an envelope (on-cover), leave it there! Removing it can actually lower the value, especially if the postmark is the only way to prove when it was sent.
- Consult the Scott Catalogue: This is the "Bible" of stamp collecting. It lists the normal version as #1203 and the error version (including the intentional ones) as #1204.
The reality is that while the Dag Hammarskjold postage stamp didn't make Leonard Sherman a multi-millionaire, it did secure his place in history. It remains a bizarre example of what happens when a government department decides to play "spoiler" in the world of private collecting. It’s a cheap, easy, and fascinating piece of history that any collector can—and probably should—have in their book.