Stamp Design Error: Sun On Wrong Side

There's a mistake in the design of a new stamp at your post office: The sun is shown on the wrong side of the Grand Canyon, reports CBSNews.com's Lloyd de Vries.

It's the second design error in the 60-cent airmail stamp, intended for use on mail to foreign destinations: Last year, 100 million were printed placing the natural wonder in Colorado, rather than Arizona. It's the Colorado River that runs through it.

That error was caught before the stamps left the printer, and they were destroyed there.

It's unlikely the current version will become a valuable stamp, with 100 million printed. It's also not likely the error will be corrected when the stamp is reprinted, because current supplies are sufficient, says the U.S. Postal Service.

The USPS didn't learn that the photographic image had been reversed until after the stamp was issued Jan. 20.

"It was someone associated with the Grand Canyon park out there who said something doesn't look right," James Tolbert, Manager, Stamp Services, told philatelic reporters Tuesday. "That image had been out there with the Grand Canyon folks for quite some time."

Color illustrations of the stamp design had also been printed in stamp collecting publications - "nice big luscious color images of it," as Stamp Collector associate editor Fred Baumann put it.

Tolbert said the reversing of the image was not done for artistic purposes, as is sometimes done in designs. "It was just an oversight somewhere along the process," he said.

That process started three years ago when the Postal Service decided to issue new stamps for mail going overseas, with designs featuring natural wonders of the U.S. The thought was that foreign visitors would show off the beauty of the U.S. to their friends and relatives back home. Other stamps in the series feature Mt. Rainier, the Rio Grande River and Niagara Falls.

Tolbert isn't certain where in the design process the error occurred, whether photographer Tom Till of Moab, Utah, marked the transparency to show which side was the front, or whether it was reversed by USPS artists.

"It would not have occurred if we were dealing with original art or illustrations," he said, "because we have a very tight button-down process for dealing with that."

"Unfortunately, we had not applied the same discipline with photographs that we had with illustrations."

They will now.

"I think to the average consumer or viewer of that image, no one would know the difference," he added.

Tolbert, who moved up to the top stamp job at the Postal Service late last month, calls the design error "one of my worst nightmares so far."

In his conference call with reporters, Tolbert quoted former New York City mayor Fiorella LaGuardia, who said "When I make a mistake it's a 'beaut.'"

"When we make a mistake, it's not only a 'beaut,' it's a Grand Canyon."

By Lloyd de Vries
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