Z-Grill Rare Stamps


At first glance, the stamp you can see above is a simple blue stamp with a portrait of one of the Founding Fathers and the first postmaster of the United States, Benjamin Franklin. In fact, this is the most valuable of all US post stamps, and it can become the highlight of the most prestigious philatelic auctions.

The stamp was produced in 1868 using a rare technology. In particular, grilling technology was applied to the stamp. The US post service resorted to it so that citizens could no longer wash off the cancellation from used stamps and then reuse them. In the process of printing, a special grill was pressed to the paper, tearing the fibers, and a rectangular grid with small indentations appeared on the stamp backside. After this procedure, the surface of the stamp absorbed ink easily and it was impossible to wash it off. It is known that 11 types of grill presses were used to perform this procedure and each of them was designated by a Latin letter. Type Z (11 x 14 mm) was one of the rarest, as it was used for a short time before it was decided to stop using the technology.

Known Stamps


At present, only two copies of the 1-cent Z-Grill have been found. One of these rare stamps belongs to the New York Public Library. In 1925, it was presented to the library by philatelist Benjamin Miller along with his full US stamps collection.
The second stamp was discovered in 1957, and at different times, its owners were private collectors Lester Brookman and Jerry Buss. In 1986, Robert Zoellner bought the stamp for $418,000, and then in 1998, he sold it to the Mystic Stamp Company for an unknown amount (approx. from $850,000 to $935,000). In 2005, the president of the company traded the stamp to financier Bill Gross for 4 "Inverted Jenny" stamps, which cost about $2,970,000. By adding this stamp to his collection, Bill Gross became the only collector who owned all the US stamps of the 19th century.