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One born every minute.

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries

(MUSIC: Barnum / "There is a sucker...born every minute" approx :05)

Someone recently offered for sale a copy of the Inverted Jenny, that 1918 airmail 
stamp with the upside down airplane, at a bargain price on eBay. 

Now, these normally sell at auctions for about a million dollars. Yet the reserve 
on this lot was met around 200 bucks.

Never mind that the item description said the stamp was used, and that the picture 
was of an unused stamp. Nor that there are no known used copies of the Inverted 
Jenny.

The seller said this jewel of stamp collecting was found in his grandfather's garage. 
There were originally 100 Inverted Jennys, and stamp collectors know the whereabouts 
of nearly ALL of them. Trust me, NONE of them is kept in a garage.

The item sold for 700 dollars. The seller bought a REPRODUCTION of the stamp a month 
earlier, for 25. 
The only other item he's ever sold on eBay was a pair of Gucci shoes that the buyer 
says were fakes.

Quite a few stamp collectors reported this stamp scam to eBay at least a day before 
it closed. eBay DID remove the lot after it closed, and probably voided the sale - the 
company won't say. Still, someone almost paid 700 dollars for this fake.

There's a saying that if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably ISN'T.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more on stamps and stamp collecting, 
visit virtual-stamp-club-dot-com

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