Major stamp errors are usually born in the printing works, but the fate of this stamp was decided at the design stage. It is not a rarity—4.9 billion (!) examples entered circulation—yet a mistake by the US Postal Service brought one fortunate person $3.5 million and considerable fame.
Before experienced collectors stone me, let us make one thing clear: in the traditional philatelic sense this stamp is not really a major error, but the strange story is too good to ignore. The stamp appeared in December 2010 as a tribute to the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, one of the best-known symbols of the United States. It had already been on sale for months when an observant collector noticed that the stamp did not show the original statue, which for decades had symbolised hope and freedom to immigrants arriving by ship. Instead, the image showed a replica of the statue standing outside a Las Vegas casino—a symbol of hope perhaps mainly to gamblers arriving in the city.
The US Postal Service admitted the mistake but did not withdraw the stamp. Spokesman Roy Betts said they liked this version and would still have chosen the image even if they had known it showed a replica. There was, of course, a more practical reason as well: by then almost $1 million had already been spent on the issue, and recalling it would have caused a substantial loss. In fact, the stamp was not withdrawn until 2014, by which time it had generated a total profit of $70 million. The rather kitschy Las Vegas statue was created by the not particularly famous Robert Davidson, who explained that its differences from the original Statue of Liberty were deliberate: he wanted the face to appear more feminine, modern and contemporary and to convey a certain “Las Vegas feeling”.
The sculptor sued because his work had been used without permission, and the court concluded that the two statues were unmistakably different. Judge Eric Bruggink found that the creator of the more sultry—even sexier—statue was entitled to a share of the revenue earned by the US Postal Service (USPS) from sales of the stamps. USPS was ordered to pay Davidson $3.5 million in damages, while the publicity surrounding the stamp also brought him considerably more fame than he might otherwise have achieved through his artistic career.