Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill

06 Oct

Posted by Stamp Collecting as Rare Stamps

The Benjamin Franklin Z Grill, or simply "Z-Grill", is a 1-cent United States postage stamp issued in February 1868. The 1-cent Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill is generally considered to be the rarest and most valuable of all US postage stamps.

This Benjamin Franklin design was the common 1-cent stamp of the 1860s. What makes the Benjamin Franklin Z Grill different from other stamps of the same design is the so-called "Z" variety of a grill pressed into the stamp, creating tiny indentations in the paper. The purpose of grilling was to permit the canceling ink to be better absorbed into the stamp paper, thus preventing reuse of stamps by washing out the cancellation marks. The use of grills was found to be impractical and they were gradually discontinued after 1870.

1868 1 cent Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill from the New York Public Liabrary Benjamin Miller Collection Although the 1-cent Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill is generally cited as the rarest and most valuable of all US postage stamps, the 15-cent Lincoln Z-Grill is just as rare and the 10-cent Washington Z-Grill is almost as rare. All three of these stamps were produced at the same time, along with more common Z-grill versions of the contemporary 2-cent, 3-cent, 5-cent and 12-cent stamps.

The "Z" pattern is unique among grill templates used by the Post Office because it creates horizontal ridges into the stamp rather than vertical ridges. The Z-Grill was used only for a very short time. The earliest known postmarks on Z-grill stamps date from January 1868; by mid-February, stamps with the D- and E-Grills were already being postmarked.

Two Known Copies of the Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill

There are currently only two known 1-cent 1868 Benjamin Franklin Z-Grills, both with cancellation marks. One stamp is owned by the New York Public Library as part of the Benjamin Miller Collection.

The second 1868 1 cent Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill stamp was bought at auction in 1998 by Mystic Stamp Company for $935,000. Siegel Auctions auctioned the stamp as part of the Robert Zoellner collection. In October 2005, Mystic Stamp Company President Donald Sundman traded the Z-Grill to financier Bill Gross for a block of four Inverted Jenny stamps worth nearly $3 million. Upon completing the trade, Gross became the owner of the only complete collection of U.S. 19th century stamps.

Both the Z-Grills were on display at the National Postal Museum along with the first part of the Benjamin Miller Collection from May 2006 to October 2007.

In Scott’s catalogue of U. S. Stamps, the 1¢ Z-Grill is listed as #85A. The stamp is one of the few issues that does not bear a unique number but must share a number with other stamps. The Z pattern did not gain general recognition as a separate variety of grill until the 1910s, long after Scott's numbering system was put in place. Scott assigned capital letters to the Z-Grill denominations and inserted them the catalogue after #85 (the 3¢ D-Grill). The 1¢ Z Grill was designated as #85A and the 2¢ through 15¢ Z Grills were given numbers 85B through 85F. This enabled Scott to keep the existing numbers for all subsequent stamps, beginning with the E-Grill issues (#86-91).