Security Engravers Presentation - BEP Taxpaids and Special Tax Stamps

Fantastic! What an excellent looking piece.

 

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Nice presentation.
Thanks

 

The other day I discovered I had a couple more taxpaid revenues that I'd overlooked -- they were in my souvenir card collection. One of them is another tobacco stamp that includes a portrait of Grant, though smaller than the one I posted previously. This was featured on a 2008 card issued by the BEP for the ANA show in Baltimore.

The other is a Renovated Butter taxpaid featured on the BEP's souvenir card for the Pacific '97 philatelic exhibition. I'm only going to post a close-up of the stamp here, if you want to see the full card I'll post that on the Souvenir Cards thread...
http://www.cointalk.com/showthread.php?t=94663&p=1088246&viewfull=1#post1088246

 

More follow-up on this topic. I came across some source material from an 1890 story in "Press and Angels American," a weekly paper published in Trenton, New Jersey. According to Edward Sterling (pictured), by the late 1880s obsolete tax stamps had piled up to such an extent that the U.S. Department of the Treasury was running out of room to store them. Stacks of stamps in bound books returned by tax collectors occupied every corridor on the 4th floor of the Treasury Building, along with nine rooms and the basement of the nearby Winder Building, then used by Treasury—some 4,000 cubic feet.

An act of Congress authorized the sale of this surplus material and Deats and Sterling were the successful bidders on the entire accumulation. They received seven train boxcars full of paper weighing more than 200 tons. "We bought them chiefly as historical records," said Sterling. "We now have the stubs of every revenue stamp issued in the United States from No. 1 in 1863 to many thousands in 1885." They eventually identified more than 500 varieties of stamps, some valued at up to $4,000!

I'm also attaching an advertisement they printed on the back of a Distillery Warehouse taxpaid stamp for the 1891 Great Inter-State Fair in Trenton. Deats & Sterling printed 50,000 of these to give away as samples.

 

This is the first time I've seen so many tax stamps in one location. And a very interesting informative presentation.

I'll start adding some to my collections.

 

Know that,s a very informative presentation

 

I made three really interesting additions to my taxpaid collection yesterday -- among the longest stamps ever produced! These are tobacco stamps used to tax bundled or boxed cigars (50 cents per 100 in the 1870s). The 100-cigar stamps were the some of the largest, obviously, as they were wrapped around the most cigars. The longest one is 16 inches! I believe those for 250 and 500 cigars were even larger. Few of these survived due to their size and the difficulty in removing them intact from their packaging. This was actually the first time I had ever laid eyes on physical stamps like this and there were many I could not afford. Maybe three dealers in the country stock these.

I was also pleased to discover a paper money connection: the portrait of Henry Clay on the top stamp also appears on the 1869 $50 U.S. Note. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the lathe work and "100" numerals also appear on currency, but I haven't done a close comparison. These are all great examples of BEP and bank note engraving.

 

I went to a stamp show recently and ran into the same dealer who sold me the cigar stamps last year. Made a couple nice pick-ups to add to my taxpaid collection. The snuff stamp is about 5 inches wide and the wholesale liquor dealer is about 11 inches with the stub. The latter was printed by American Bank Note.

 

Picked up these two beauties (in the eye of the beholder) the other day. Very hard to find used taxpaids in decent condition but I'm happy with both. These are tobacco taxpaid stamps from 1871 and among the first securities printed by the Treasury Dept, before the Bureau of Engraving & Printing even had an official name. The stamp depicting the sailor is slightly larger than a dollar bill and really has the look of paper money from the period. The one with the ship is slightly smaller.

 

I've had my large format scanner for a while but hadn't gotten around to scanning the full sheets of some of these taxpaids, which I did tonight. I posted scans of the individual stamps earlier -- here they are in context. I still haven't figured out why the 30 gallon Rectified Spirits stamps (Hamilton) required two serial numbers on its face.

 

I love the last one

 

I just have to post this one. It sold recently on ebay for a hefty sum -- but not to me. Still, you just don't see these very often, so I wanted to include it on this thread. An 1897 Special Tax Stamp for Retail Dealer in Oleomargarine!

 

I really liked reading this file. While no bills were shown I learned a lot on these revenue stamps never knew they existed. This was interesting to see. Question I have is what is S.E.G.? in post #13

 

Some years ago there was an active sub-group on this forum called the Security Engravers Group. They did rotational presentations on all manner of subjects related to bank note engraving, though not necessarily bank notes. Five years ago a key member, Connor1, passed away and other key members have since dropped out. I would love to see this group reconstituted (many members still post here), but the forum membership seems to have shifted to serial number collectors. I'm not certain there's enough interest these days to revive it.

There are a lot of older threads from this group you would also enjoy. Many of them are listed here: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ca...e-security-engravers-group.120917/#post957497

 

Thank you, gsalexan.
I did click on the links and read quite a lot. Too bad about Connor1 (passing away) and from what I read that guy RickieB seemed like an rules on the schedules and what construction guys call a premadonna, know super's like that. Billy didn't seem too happy about that so maybe its a good thing he is not here now. I would be lost trying to do this and was impressed by what the people did on subjects. That award was pretty cool as well.
Hope I am not insulting anyone, just my interpretation after reading.

 

" what I read that guy RickieB seemed like an rules on the schedules and what construction guys call a premadonna, know super's like that."

I don't know you however I'm offended by your comments re: RickieB. I didn't know him well I do he helped a lot of people on CT and was generous and well liked. I assume rules means rules and "premadonna" translates to primadonna
He was neither.

That's very harsh and uncalled for especially for someone you didn't know.

peace love and eternal cosmic wisdom,

 

After the edits by the moderator, I'm not quite sure what was written originally. But to head off any negative dog-piling -- Rick had to be pretty diligent about getting commitments from people to submit things, which often fell through the cracks. He might have seemed a little zealous in those posts, but it was kind of like herding cats. In truth, he was always very polite, helpful, and grateful for members who would share their knowledge.

'Nuf said.

 

I agree with the above. RickieB was always generous to me with his advise and knowledge through thread posts and private messages.

 

Midas1- gsalexan-RickieB
I send my apology, I did not mean any disrespect to anyone. You are right for calling my post harsh about the man. It seems that I was to quick to judge after reading parts of 1 topic.

 

No problem, BunkerTrapMan