Civil War Era Revenue-Stamped Documents, 1862-1883

Ju ly 1868 “Sea Letter” issued at New Bedford, stating bona fides of the whaleship  Elizabeth Swift, “bound for Pacific Ocean,” in French, Spanish, English and Dutch,  to “Most Serene . . . Lords, Emperors, Kings,  Republics, Princes, etc., etc.”   Handstamped signature of President Andrew Johnson, signed by Secretary of State William Seward, with Great Seal of the United States, certification by notary public,  stamp tax at 5¢ general Certificate rate.    The Elizabeth Swift was abandoned off the coast of Alaska in the “Disaster of 1871,” its  company evacuated on a perilous journey of some sixty miles to the rescue ships. This Sea Letter must have been carried on that journey by Master George Bliven.    The rarity of the document, coupled with the fate of the ship, make this one of the premier Whaling and Polar collectibles extant, and one of the top items of Civil War era fiscal history.    The purpose of this exhibit is t...

October 1857 license of 13th Judicial District Court, Stanislaus County, stamped with blue Attorney at Law $10 The purpose of this exhibit is to illustrate California’s stamp taxes of 1857–1872 via surviving stamped documents. Documents are arranged according to the tax schedules of 1857, 1858, 1861, 1862 and 1866.  Just f ive types of documents were taxed, but amazingly, at 190 different rates, paid by well over 500 face-different stamps! When the Controllers’ security handstamps are factored in, the total of collectible varieties swells to over a thousand. This is a remarkably fertile philatelic field.     1. 1857: Original Rates;  Insurance tied to Exchange 1.1 Attorney at Law ($10) 1.2  Exchange I (22 rates) 1.3  Insurance I (22 rates) 1.4  Passenger (1st Class, 2nd Class, Steerage) The Iconic 1857  “Blue Californias” Effective July 1, 1857, attorneys’ licenses, bills of exchange, insurance policies and passenger tickets were taxed, and ...

Figure 1. July 1864 promissory with Esmeralda dateline and affixed revenue stamp s Figure 1 shows a promissory note from the holdings of the late Lynn Langdon, Idaho document hunter extraordinaire, dated Esmeralda, July 27, 1864, for $256.30 payable in six months, from G. Ebel by Chs. de La Baume, to Felix Lantier. Five 3¢ Telegraph revenue stamps are affixed in a strip of three and pair, canceled “GE July 27 1864” in what appears to be the same hand as on the note itself. On the reverse are notated “Received on the within note one Hundred and ninety Six 30/100 Dollars/JKM Oneill/Rockey Bar/Oct 4th 1864” and “Filed this 27th day of Oct., A.D. 1865/Wm Kelly Justice of the peace.” This last appears to account for the survival of this piece, as early Alturas County court documents featured prominently in the Langdon holdings. See more.

The “Consuelo”  September 1865, New York, works in California. At top the iconic 1851 Augustus Humbert $50 piece; below, U.S. 1865 $20 gold “double eagle” and $10 gold “eagle” The purpose of this exhibit is to present a panoramic overview of the field of revenue-stamped stock certificates of the Civil War tax era. Two goals are pursued:  to illustrate the scope and vigor of the U.S. economy of this era as no other collectibles, philatelic or otherwise, can do; and to highlight those cases where the stamps affixed are extraordinary. (Only those with adhesive stamps are included; the relatively very  few with imprinted stamps comprise a specialized field worthy of their own exhibit.) These two paths are often entwined.  Exhibit Plan: 1.  Railroads / Patterns of Stamp Use  (five subsections) 2.  Mining  (nine subsections) 3.  U.S. - Nevada combination stamping 4.  Rare Western origins, non-mining 5.  East and Midwest  (seven subse...

1894 bond with Great Britain embossed transfer tax stamp struck in 1894  and New York Mortgage Endorsement orange stamp affixed January 1917  Purpose. This exhibit explains and illustrates New York’s Mortgage Endorsement, Secured Debt, and Tax on Investments stamp taxes of 1910–20, which applied only to bonds, via intact stamped bonds.  Here is the story, in exhibit form, of one of the great philatelic discoveries of our generation, important not just within the area of U.S. state revenues, but "Important for Philately" as a whole, for it expands its very borders, bringing under the philatelic umbrella an entire subfield hidden for a century —  a discovery triply extraordinary in that it comprises what are arguably the most beautiful objects ever to bear stamps, and complex, unprecedented rules for stamp use. The rules governing use of the stamps, not apparent by observation or even from the vague defining statutes, were unaddressed in the philatelic press for a cen...