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Oops.

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.

The Postal Service recently admitted it goofed on one of the American Scientists stamps 
coming out in March. The artist reversed a line in the chemical code in the background 
behind biochemist Gerty Cori. 

The other three scientists featured are Linus Pauling, John Bardeen and Edwin Hubble. 
Since the stamps have already been printed, they'll be issued with the incorrect code. 
It won't make them any more valuable.

It's not the first time the Postal Service has made a design error...and it's not even 
close to the worst mistake, either.

About 13 years ago, there was the 20-stamp Legends of the West set. One of the people 
was supposed to be black cowboy Bill Pickett. Instead, the first version of the sheet 
showed his brother BEN. The stamps were reprinted....but some of the errors did get out.

Or how about the Grand Canyon stamp nine years ago? First the caption had the natural 
wonder in the wrong state. Those stamps were destroyed, and a new version printed -- with 
the sun on the wrong side of the canyon.

Canada has a recent design error of its own: The picture of the Pachena Point Lighthouse 
on Vancouver Island was reversed, probably to make room for the flag on the same side as 
the other four lighthouse stamps in the set. It'll be fixed in the next printing.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more about stamps and stamp collecting, 
visit virtual-stamp-club-dot-com.

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