By Carles Prats.

Vinebre inverted center stamps are some of the rarest locals of the Spanish civil war philately. The few known are on covers addressed to the dealer G. Resten in Paris, truly circulated, or to the company Zumstein & Co in Switzerland, with souvenir postmarks on covers that never went through the mail.

Some of these covers addressed to Resten in Paris, truly circulated with inverted centers, have achieved prices as high as $2,200 (Cherristone Auctions, October 2011, lot 503), while covers to Zumstein & Co in Zurich have sold for $350 (same auction, lot 502). Add a buyer’s premium of 15% to gavel prices.

Catalogs listed all these stamps with their varieties and with the pairs that can be formed due to them, but all listings were theoretical. All examples known were on covers, and catalogs reproduced the postmarked stamps, as the images were digitally isolated from pieces stuck to covers. It was thought the inverted error should follow its counterpart with regular centers pattern to form pairs and to have varieties, but it was just a supposition because few inverted centers were seen not tied to covers.

Now we can present a complete uncirculated set of Vinebre inverted centers that proves the catalogs were right in their attribution of the same varieties and formation of pairs for the inverted center stamps as for the regular center ones.

We reproduce the set below:

1. Double characters in CORREUS and CÈNTIMS complete set:

2. Simple characters in CORREUS and CÈNTIMS complete set.

3. Tete-beche pairs complete set: double characters in CORREUS and CÈNTIMS, and one of the stamps with inverted frame plus inverted center.

4. Se tenant pairs complete set: left stamp with double characters in CORREUS and CÈNTIMS, and right stamp with simple characters.