Oops! Statue of Liberty postage stamp shows Las Vegas

NEW YORK (Reuters) – After printing 3 billion copies of a new postage stamp bearing an image of the Statue of Liberty, the United States Postal Service received a strange question from a stamp collector.

Did postal officials realise the photograph was not of the famed statue in New York Harbor, but of a less-feted fibreglass and Styrofoam replica outside a Las Vegas casino?

They did not.

"We certainly regret having made the error," Roy Betts, a USPS spokesman, said on Friday.

The first-class postage stamp, which shows a low-angled close-up of Lady Liberty's face and crown, was issued in December, according to an announcement about the "world-recognized" symbol of the United States....