Historic Spiderman Inverts, by John Ryskamp

Editor's note: The following article appeared in issue 176 (July-September 2014) of The EFO Collector.

After a long drought, finally something new at the kiosks. The last day of the First Class Mail Parcel service (FCM PARCEL) was September 2, 2017. This ends the life of a service, the first day of which was May 20, 2007. A ten year run, full of incidents. The history of this kiosk stamp would make a wonderful single-stamp exhibit. The change on September 3 was the result of the transfer of FCM PARCEL to the competitive product list and the renaming of the service.

Since the first pictorial APC Forever stamp paper appeared in 2012 (the "mailbox" stamp), collectors have been waiting for an inverted pictorial APC Forever stamp. They were bound to be rare, since it is very obvious to postal clerks, when they run test stamps after loading the paper, if the paper has been loaded inverted. All of the small stamps (the 17 service stamps plus the USPS log Forever stamp) have appeared inverted on Reindeer paper. However, not until now have the indicia designed specifically for a pictorial APC Forever stamp paper, appeared inverted on that paper.

Around November 4, 2014 (the EKU, the date I serviced 5 covers), such an invert appeared on Spiderman paper at an APC kiosk in San Francisco. Between then and the removal of the paper (November 24), I bought the examples listed below. Be on the lookout for examples which may have been purchased by unsuspecting customers and used on envelopes-- or, indeed, for mint examples from purchasers who knew what they were buying! The numbers below in parentheses have been lightly penciled on the backing paper.

There is left-column (figure upright) dot herringbone embossing (in a line, affecting all left-column stamps; this is an artifact of the paper manufacturing process), square corners in the gloss block over the figure, and smooth tagging at left (Round corners and rough tagging are known on small APC stamp paper). The embossing--which is not an error--creates a second type of the error.

Top: A stamp from the lower right pane from the block of 10 sold for $27 on eBay. Bottom: The “normal.”

Block of 10 with the error.

Abbreviations used in listings below:

Listings

SINGLE - 38

short, stub - 2 (sst1 - sst2)
short, no stub - 2 (sn1 - sn2)
long, stub - (lst1)
long, no stub - 2 (ln1 - ln2)
stub - 15 (st1 - st15) (stl4 EKE)
no stub - 16 (n1 - n16)

PAIR - 32

short, stub - 2 (2sst1 - 2sst2)
short, no stub - 2 (2sn1 - 2sn3) (2sne EKE)
long, stub - 3 (2lst1 - 2lst3)
stub - 10 (2st1 - 2st10)
no stub - 14 (2n1 - 2n14)

BLK 3 - 7

short, stub - 2 (3sst1 - 3sst2) (3sst1 EKE)
long, stub - 1 (3lst1)
stub - 4 (3st1 - 3st4) (3st1, 3st4 EKE)

BLK 4 - 8

long, stub - 2 (4st1 - 4lst2)
stub - 6 (4st1 - 4st6) (4st1 EKE)

ALL PIECES BELOW HAVE STUBS

BLK 5 - 5

short - 1 (5s1)
long - 2 (5l1 - 5l2) (5l1, 5l2 EKE)
(5 1 - 5 2)

BLK 6 - 4

short - 1 (6s1)
long - 2 (6l1 - 6l2)
(6 1) (6 1 EKE)

BLK 7 - 4

short - 3 (7s1 - 7s3) (7s2 EKE)
long - 1 (7l1)

BLK 8 - 5

short - 1 (8s1)
long - 3 (8l1 - 8l3) (8l2 EKE)
(8 1)

BLK 9 - 4

short - 1 (9s1)
long - 3 9l1 - 9l3) (9l3 EKE)

PANE 10 (largest possible multiple) - 6

short - 5 (10s1 - 10s5) (10s2 EKE)
long - 1 (10l1)