The CIA invert is a one-dollar value postage stamp error issued by the United States Postal Service.

This was the first United States stamp issued with a major design element printed upside down since the Dag Hammarskjöld invert error of 1962.

When the one known pane of this invert was discovered, in the spring of 1986, it had already been on sale at the post office in McLean, Virginia for some time without anyone noticing the error: indeed, five of its one hundred stamps had been sold by unsuspecting clerks, and the portion of the selvage bearing the plate number was no longer attached.

[2] Initially, Schiff shielded the members of the group from scrutiny, announcing that the fourteen stamps from the sheet not sold to him had all been used on CIA mailings.

However, after the true story surfaced in the mass media (revealed by The New York Times and CBS news), the stamp became known as the CIA invert, and the agency was obliged to make its own investigation.