Why was a second printing of the Dag Hammarskjold commemorative stamp ordered by the Postmaster General on 16 November 1962?

In fact, there was a public outcry by hard core stamp collectors worldwide against the second printing. The reason was the second printing devalued the invert errors mistakenly printed during the first print run.

The error resulted in the yellow ink plate having been installed in reverse during the printing process which caused the inverted yellow background color on the stamp on a small percentage of the total print run that was released to the public 23 October 1962. The second release of the 16 November 1962 print run ultimately resulted in 121,440,000 stamps with the proper yellow ink print image and 40,270,000 with the yellow ink printing error.

The stamp came to be known as Day's Folly as a result of Postmaster General J. Edward Day's order for the second print run. With his print order, Day stated, "The Post Office Department is not running a jackpot operation." His motivation was to avoid an error stamp of very high value just like the very famous Inverted Jenny air mail stamp from many decades earlier.

Although the second printing did devalue the stamps printed in error, those First Day Cover stamps (see graphic) with the inverted yellow field error are definitely of a higher dollar value to collectors. The most recent was sold in 2005 for US $3,500.00.

Dag Hammarskjold was the Secretary General of the United Nations. The stamp's first day of issue was on the one year anniversary after his death resulting from an airplane crash.