Picket stamp flap intrigues Bangor> Collectors waiting for word on lottery

To err may be human, and to forgive, divine, — but, as the U.S. Postal Service has discovered, it’s the repenting that gets complicated.

For the past couple of months, a select group of people — 150,000 of them — in Maine and the rest of the country have been getting their very own copies of a mistake, the infamous and wrong Bill Pickett stamp on the recalled “Legends of the West” issue.

Steve Morris, philatelic clerk at the Bangor Post Office, estimated that at least 30 residents in the Bangor area have received the misprinted stamps over the counter. Other people may have been home to receive the stamps, which have come via registered mail from the postal service, he said.

USPS spokesman Robin Wright, in Washington D.C., said this week that the postal service has no way of telling how many Mainers received the Bill Pickett misprints through the unique mail lottery. But he said that all 150,000 recalled Legends panes were expected to be shipped by Jan. 20, and that unfulfilled orders should be returned soon after that date.

The stamp — one of a 20-stamp sheet — was unveiled in December 1993, and recalled in January 1994, when a member of the Pickett family called attention to the fact that the 29-cent stamp portrayed not Bill Pickett, but his brother Ben.

In an unusual lottery, the U.S. Postal Service decided to sell 150,000 of the misprints on a first-come, first-serve basis for $8.70 each. The decision was made to hold the lottery after 183 of the misprinted sheets got into circulation prior to the first date of issue, which had been scheduled for March 1994.

People who wanted the wrong stamp, either for collection or investment purposes, had to mail a check and a request to the postal service last October, hoping to be among the 150,000 selected based on the earliest postmark. According to published reports, the USPS received 530,000 orders, with 419,486 postmarked Oct 1, 1994.

Professional stamp dealers, who had paid around $4,700 for one of the 183 wrong sheets sold before the misprint was discovered, were concerned that thei investments would not pan out if more of the misprints were in circulation. They challenged the postal service in federal court, which ultimately determined that the USPS could continue with the lottery.

Stamp auctioneer Gil Roderick of Downeast Stamps in Bangor said that the U.S. Postal Service compounded the flap regarding the Bill Pickett stamp by first attempting to recall the cowboy stamp and then by holding the lottery to avoid creating stamp rarities.

Roderick maintained that the post office has wasted money both in conducting the lottery and in fighting the issue in court with disgruntled stamp collectors and dealers.

“It just wasn’t the proper handling of the situation,” he asserted. “The stamp was already in the hands of the public. They should have just left the original out there, apologized and maybe issued the correct one later.”

Wright countered, “We did what we could to correct the problem immediately. It’s unfortunate we had to go to these lengths. We just tried to make as many people as happy as possible.”

Philatelic Clerk Morris said that approximately eight post office employees applied for the sheets and that two had received them.

“But no one’s gotten their money back yet either, so there’s still hope for the rest of us,” he said.

Meanwhile, Irv Marsters, owner of the Bangor Letter Shop, applied for misprints for himself, his son, Joel, and his office manager, Nancy French. He and French have received the stamps, while his son is still “waiting anxiously.”

Marsters, who has collected stamps “here and there over the years,” said he was “tickled to death” about receiving the misprint.

He said he considered the Pickett misprint a sensible investment, as well as “a nice part of anyone’s collection and a good conversation piece.”

“I was also intrigued by the whole idea of the U.S. Postal Service turning a negative into a positive using the lottery approach. I applaud their creativity.”

Wright pointed out that selling 150,000 of the misprinted stamps helped the postal service cover the cost of reprinting the corrected image; it gave collectors a chance to acquire some and “diluted attention and took some of the focus off” the 183 misprinted stamps that got out, he said.

It also reduced the value of those stamps.

Roderick said a Bill Pickett misprint is now worth about $100. The auctioneer said that the misprint was no worse than other stamp errors made by the postal service over the years.

“It’s an artist’s rendition made from a picture. It was simply made from the wrong picture. It’s something people could have lived with.”

He paused. “I suppose I might get bent out of shape if I was a Pickett family member. But all the government had to do was simply issue the right picture.”

Meanwhile, Wright explained that the U.S. Postal Service is “taking steps to make sure” that a design error like the one on the Bill Pickett stamp won’t be repeated.

Extensive research has gone into the Civil War stamp series to be released this summer, he said. Each picture will be reviewed by experts for historical accuracy.

“We’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure everything is correct.”

After all, he asserted, “The buck stops here.”