[press release]
Sundman Offers Reward For APRL’s Stolen McCoy Inverted Jenny Stamps
(Camden, New York) — Donald Sundman, President of Mystic Stamp Company in Camden, New York, is offering a reward of up to $100,000 to locate the two still-missing Inverted Jenny (Scott C3a) stamps from a block of four stolen nearly 60 years ago. The block was owned at the time of theft by Ethel B. McCoy of New York City who later donated two subsequently-recovered stamps and legal rights to the other two to the American Philatelic Research Library (APRL). [One of the recovered stamps, position 65, is shown here.]
Sundman is offering the reward of $50,000 per stamp on behalf of the APRL. He made the reward announcement at the Aerophilately 2014 convention banquet, September 13, 2014, at the American Philatelic Society headquarters in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.
“It’s possible that the two remaining missing stamps were innocently acquired by collectors decades ago who did not realize they had been stolen. With the passage of time, the heirs of those collectors may not realize they’ve inherited stolen property,” said Sundman (left).
For 19 years the stamps were the prize possession of Ethel B. McCoy (1893 – 1980), a patron of performing arts and an avid collector whose father, Charles Bergstresser, was a co-founder of the Dow Jones company.
In the 1986 book, The Inverted Jenny: Mystery, Money, Mania, author George Amick described McCoy as “…a woman of many interests. As the only child of one of the great innovators of American business and the wife of two other successful businessmen, she could afford to indulge them.”
McCoy’s first husband, Bert A. Stewart, a coin collector, died in 1936. In 1941 she married a prominent stamp collector, Walter R. McCoy, and they were active in philatelic organizations. In 1937 she was named a director of the American Air Mail Society and was posthumously named to the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame in 1981.
McCoy acquired the block of four 24¢ Inverted Jenny airmail stamps — positions 65, 66, 75 and 76 from the original, unique pane of 100 — for $16,000 from Spencer Anderson in 1936. It was stolen in September 1955 while on exhibit at the American Philatelic Society convention in Norfolk, Virginia.
The hobby’s greatest cold case is the subject of a cover story by Ken Lawrence in the September 2014 issue of American Philatelist, the journal of the APS.
“There is still mystery and intrigue surrounding the theft,” said Rob Haeseler, Chairman of the American Philatelic Research Library’s McCoy Reward Committee.
“The McCoy block was deftly plucked from the Norfolk exhibit in broad daylight as the show prepared to open for the day. The thief cut a cord binding two of the exhibit frames and slid back the covering sheet of glass several inches. Armed guards had been stationed in the exhibit hall. A suspect has never been named.”
The block was broken apart, and one of the stolen stamps (position 75) was discovered in 1977, another (position 65) in 1981. Both were recovered with the participation of the FBI. Before she died at the age of 87 in 1980, McCoy donated both of them along with the legal rights to the two still-missing stamps to the APRL.
In 1981, the recovered position 75 Inverted Jenny was sold at auction on behalf of the APRL for $115,000. In 1988, the APRL offered a $10,000 reward for each of the two still-missing stamps, but neither one was located.
“The Inverted Jenny stamps are a philatelic treasure, but title to the two missing McCoy stamps belongs to the APRL,” Sundman explained. “If someone tried to sell one of them now, it would be seized and they’d have nothing. This is an opportunity to turn in the stamps for a $50,000 reward for each one, assuming they have not been damaged beyond recognition.”
In 2005, Sundman traded one of the two known 1868 Ben Franklin 1¢ “Z Grill” (Scott 85A) stamps for the numbered plate block of four Inverted Jenny stamps then owned by Wall Street bonds trader Bill Gross. The exchange was valued at $6 million at the time.
The reward offer for the missing McCoy stamps is being made by Sundman for one year, through September 2015.
In his article about the theft, Lawrence wrote: “It’s likely that nearly everyone who might have personal knowledge of the theft and subsequent dispersal of the McCoy inverts has died, but perhaps they left behind evidence, or perhaps the stolen stamps reside in estates whose beneficiaries don’t know what they have. Let’s all do our best to spread the word. Recovering one or both of the missing McCoy inverts will not only benefit APRL financially, it will elevate the stature of our hobby, and it will add yet another page to an epic that is not likely to be completed in our lifetimes.”
Anyone with information about the missing stamps can contact the American Philatelic Society at (800) 782-9580 extension 246 or by email at Jenny@stamps.org.
This will be issued some time in September, with the “2014” year on it. The design is similar to the earlier versions. It will sell for 60¢ (the current 49¢ first-class rate plus an 11¢ surcharge. The format is a pane of 20.
