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The Lady Liberty stamp is a mistake. The design is not in fact based on the statue in New York Harbor but on a replica outside the New York-New York casino hotel in Las Vegas, the AP reports.

Postal officials say they weren't aware of that until a stamp expert pointed it out. They say the stamp was designed from a photo provided by an agency which licensed it only as "Statue of Liberty." The U.S. Post Office admits that the stamp was issued to commemorate the New York statute's 125th anniversary.

The differences are more obvious when viewing both statues from a distance. The 14-year-old replica outside the New York-New York Casino in Vegas is only half the height of the original. But on a stamp-sized photo, it took a true expert to notice the difference, the Daily Mail reports. The hair is different, there's a rectangular patch on the replica's center spike and the Vegas version has more sharply defined eyes.

The mistake was made even worse by an informational leaflet released this month included in a sheet of 18 Lady Liberty and flag stamps. It contains a short history of the Statue of Liberty--but makes no mention of the replica.

Officials have now said they will change the brochure to explain the photo features a replica rather than the real 125-year-old statue.

USPS officials say they like the design and have no plans to pull it out of circulation. The 44-cent forever stamp was first issued in December, and three billion have been printed.

The mistake, first reported by Linn's Stamp News, comes to light just as the U.S. Postal Service is issuing a new collection of stamps urging protection of the environment by going green. These stamps promote actions such as composting, saving water, recycling and planting trees.