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Thursday, April 30, 2009
Battleship Revenues: Half Cent Documentary
When the Bureau of Engraving and Printing began producing the battleship series of tax stamps, the half cent documentary was orange. This is a great color for highlighting cancels and hence great for the cancel collector. However, there was trouble. Every stamp in the documentary series up to the 80 cent stamp had the exact same design as the half center, as did all 12 values of the proprietary series. The Bureau spread the available colors across all these stamps. Even then they ended up with piles of stamps that all looked the same.
This was particularly the case with the 3/8 cent proprietary stamp. Compare the two side-by-side stamps below. At first and second glance they look the same. The inevitable confusion wasn't just accepted. The Bureau went so far as to pick another color for the half cent stamp, and so they went with gray.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Battleship Revenues: The Documentaries
Since I started this blog a month ago I've focused on railroad cancels on the 2 cent documentary stamp. Yet there are 22 major varieties of documentary battleship stamps. There are also 24 major varieties of proprietary battleship stamps.
Below is an image of the 22 documentary varieties. The top 12 stamps are all rouletted between, rather than using normal round perforations. The bottom 10 stamps are all perforated with hyphen shape perforations known as hyphen holes. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing switched from using rouletting to hyphen-holes sometime in late 1899.
There are 12 rouletted stamps versus 10 hyphen-hole stamps because of the half cent varieties. Enough half cent stamps were printed before the switch to hyphen-holes so that no more half cent stamps were ordered after the switch to hyphen holes. There are two colors of half cent stamps, one orange and one gray. Orange was the original color of the half cent stamp but it was changed to gray because the orange stamp was the same color as the 3/8 cent proprietary stamp and caused too much confusion.
The values of the the documentary stamps include:
1/2 Cent
1 Cent
2 Cents
3 Cents
4 Cents
5 Cents
10 Cents
25 Cents
40 Cents
50 Cents
80 Cents
Below is an image of the 22 documentary varieties. The top 12 stamps are all rouletted between, rather than using normal round perforations. The bottom 10 stamps are all perforated with hyphen shape perforations known as hyphen holes. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing switched from using rouletting to hyphen-holes sometime in late 1899.
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The values of the the documentary stamps include:
1/2 Cent
1 Cent
2 Cents
3 Cents
4 Cents
5 Cents
10 Cents
25 Cents
40 Cents
50 Cents
80 Cents
Railroad Cancels: Gulf and Ship Island Railroad
At the time this stamp was cancelled, the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad ran its mainline from Gulfport to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. By July 1900 the mainline extended to Jackson, the capital of the State. The railroad also ran a line to the Pearl River.
I grew up between New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and spent my summers around Gulfport, Biloxi and Pass Christian. The L&N maintained a bridge across the mouth of Bay St. Louis and the tracks curled north behind Gulfport.
The charter for Gulf and Ship Island Railroad gave it an easement out into the Mississippi Sound to Ship Island. How they used this water access I don't know other than it must have inspired the name of the railroad. As for the Gulf part of the name, Ship Island is a barrier island. The Mississippi sound is the body of water between the mainland and the barrier islands, with the Gulf of Mexico beyond.
As a child I would fish off the shores of Ship and Cat Island.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Railroad Cancels: 1898 - 1902 Components of the BNSF -- Part 4: The Santa Fe
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The addition of the Santa Fe was the last major merger or acquisition in the creation of the BNSF.
Railroad Cancels: 1898 - 1902 Components of the BNSF -- Part 3: Frisco
In 1980 the Burlington Northern RR acquired the Frisco.
Below is a stamp cancelled by the Frisco in 1899.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Railroad Cancels: 1898 - 1902 Components of the BNSF -- Part 2: The Northerns
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The Burlington Northern was created through the merger of 4 railroads:
The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad
The Northern Pacific Railway
The Great Northern Railway
The Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway.
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The Burlingtons featured in the previous post. The Great Northern and the Northern Pacific were both controlled by James J. Hill but were never fully merged. The Great Northern was Hill's creation and was built carefully, building business and settling populations as it laid it rail. The NP was built in greater haste with a view to reaching the Pacific quickly. It became a financial drain and remained so for years.
Railroad Cancels: 1898-1902 Components of the BNSF -- Part1: The Burlingtons
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The BNSF is one of the largest railway systems in the United States today. It is made up of many former independent railways, many of which were viable and some of the greatest business in the United States during the Spanish American War tax period. This entry and coming entries will explore some of these independent railway components that would one day make up the BNSF.
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Above is the logo or herald for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.
The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad was one of the greatest railroads in the midwest, and survived as an indpendent system until 1970. A CBQRR cancel is included at the end of this post.
Railroad Cancels: Ann Arbor Railroad and Detroit and Lima Northern Railway
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The logo above is for the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad which was organized in 1905 through a combination of the Detroit and Lima Northern Railway and the Ohio Southern Railway. The same year the DTI took control of the Ann Arbor Railroad, though it only maintained that control for 3 years.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Revenue Cancels: Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk was a railroad primarily located in Canada, though it had operations in the New England and Midwestern States. Much of its Canadian right of way today is controlled by the Canadian National.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Railroad Cancels: Austell Refrigerator Car Line
Railroad Cancels: Contintental Fruit Express
Continental Fruit Express was a company that controlled refrigerator cars that were leased or hired to railroads for shipping fruit from California back to the midwest and eastern United States. When companies like Contintenal were started the railroads did not have large stocks of refrigerator cars. Meat packing companies like Armour did, and started to use some of their cars used for meat to hire out for hauling fruit. The Chicago meat packing company Swift had a refrigerator car line called the California Fruit Transportation Company. Armour's was the Continental Fruit Express.
1 Cent Documentary stamp cancelled by the meat packing company Armour.
Railroad Cancels: Chicago and Alton Railroad
Sunday, April 19, 2009
1898 Revenues: Perforation Types
The 2 cent documentaries did have stamps that were issued without any rouletting, at least as partial roulettes. There are no known stamps, at least to my knowledge, that are combined imperforate and hyphen hole.
Railroad Cancels: Michigan Central RR Bank Check to the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa RR
2 Cent Documentary Battleship Calender
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For those unfamiliar with calender collections of the 1898 tax period, dates are filled in by stamps cancelled for each date the tax was valid. July 1898 was the first full month that individuals and businesses were responsible for the taxes payable through stamps during the Spanish-American war. The month of July is complete for most dates except for four Sundays, when business was not normally transacted.
Railroads to note for July 1898 include:
Michigan Central RR July 1, 2, 4, 14, 16, 22, 23, 30, 31
Great Northern RR July 5
Deleware, Lackawana, and Western RR July 6
Wisconsin Central July 7
Illinois Central Railway July 8
Blue, Canada and Southern Lines July 12
Chicago, Burlington and Northern RR July 13
Burlington and Missouri River RR July 15
Chicago and Alton Railroad July 20
Wabash RR July 21
Grand Trunk RR July 25
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern RR July 26
Tolman placed notes in the margins. In the left margin is a note for the Great Northern Railway; in the top margin is a note identifying the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska.
Note the Michigan Central cancel for July 4 and the Michigan Central cancel for Sunday, July 31.
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