Cancel for July 1: Part Roulette First Day of Use

July 1, 1898 First Day of Tax Period Printed Bullseye Cancels by Smith, Kline and French pharmaceutical company. The pair above is a part roulette pair and has no rouletting between the stamps. There is a bit of a scuff on the left stamp.

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Smith Kline and French experienced numerous name and corporate changes, becoming SmithKline Beckman in 1982 and then SmithKline Beecham after mergers, the latter in 1989. In 2000, SmithKline Beecham merged with Glaxo Wellcome to become Glaxo Smith Kline, a UK-based company and one of the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world today.

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Listing and Value: In the Scott Catalogue the 5/8 cent proprietary stamp is listed under Scott #RB23. The item listed as "horizontal pair imperf vertically" (actually part roulette) is numbered RB23b. There is a value given in the 2009 US Specialized Catalogue for this item in unused condition: $350. That value is italicized, meaning the item is difficult to value accurately. In the case of this pair there just is not much market activity. However, even the italicized value is for the unused pair, not a used or cancelled pair. For that item there is only a blank, and not even a dash. The dash normally indicates the known existence of an item but no value can be placed on the item. "Christopher West" in his series in Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News published nearly 90 years ago did not indicate he knew of the existence of the 5/8 cent proprietary without vertical rouletting, either used or unused. This is a very interest pair given the printed cancel, its date, and the nature of the part rouletting. This pair was a part of Henry Tolman's collection.

Cancel for July 1: 111 Year Anniversary of the First Day of Use of the 1898 Series

The first day of use of the 1898 series of revenue stamps was July 1, 1898, 111 years ago today. After the Battleship "Maine" was destroyed by an explosion in a Cuban harbor on February 15, 1898, President McKinley delcared war on Spain on April 25 and subsequently approved the War Revenue Law of 1898 on June 13. The Act of Congress would become effective on July 1, 1898. The handstamped 2 cent documentary immediately below was cancelled by the Michigan Central Railroad and was certainly used to pay the new tax on July 1 1898. The printed cancels on the proprietary stamps that follow were made in preparation for the first day of use, with use on that day possible but not a certainty.

Many companies understood that the law required only that the stamps be cancelled with company identification and a year date, so many proprietary printed cancels do not include the month and day, precluding a July 1, 1898 cancel for many companies.

Wayne Youngblood, Secretary of the American Philatelic Society, wrote a feature piece in the June 2009 American Philatelist on First Day Bullseye cancels. In his article he highlights first day "bullseyes" on battleship revenue stamps and calls them some of the earliest examples of such cancels, in which the cancel includes a clean and all inclusive strike of the date and cancel location or cancellor of the stamp. Two images of battleships cancelled this way include the two cent battleship and a one and one quarter cent proprietary with a Dr. D. Jayne and Son cancel. There are examples of first day bullseyes from these companies in this post.

Below are 14 examples of first day battleship bullseyes, proprietary and documentary.



Michigan Central Railroad handstamp cancel. The Michigan Central was controlled by Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Antikamnia pharmaceutical company handstamp cancel. Antikamnia is more famous for its use of printed cancels. Above is an example of a first day, July 1 handstamp. Antikamnia issued, along with several other St. Louis pharmaceutical companies, provisional, self printed stamps for use early in the tax period before they could acquire adequate quantities of the battleship stamps. This handstamp was used to stamp some of the provisional stamps in addition to the proprietary battleship stamps. It is likely that this stamp was used after July 1.

T.B. Dunn Company, the maker of Sen-Sen Gum, one of the most popular chewing gum products of the time. Thomas B. Dunn the businessman would become a 5 term Republican Congressman from New York, beginning in 1913.

The Centaur Company and Charles Fletcher's signature. My mother gave me some noxious concoction called Fletcher's Castoria when I was a small child in the 1960s. This is one of the fancier printed cancels on the proprietary revenues.

K&M Co stands for Keasby and Mattison Company, which produced patent medicines. However, by the time of the cancellation of this stamp, the company was heavily into the production of asbestos and asbestos products. The firm started out as a pharmaceutical firm but became involved in asbestos production after Dr. Richard Mattison discovered that milk of magnesia would cling to hot pipes. He combined asbestos with the stomach settler and guided the Ambler, Pennsylvania based business into the production of asbestos products. The name Keasby and Mattison is associated with extensive asbestos liability legal actions.

Printed cancel for the company McKesson and Robbins, which would become embroiled in one of the worst corporate scandals in US history in 1938 after the company was taken over by a professional bootlegger under an assumed name. These days though arguably from Enron to Madoff our time has bested the M&R scandal. McKesson is today one of the largest health care companies in the world.

Dr. D. Jayne and Son printed cancel. Dr. Jayne and his sons made a variety of noxious patent medicines.

McKesson and Robbins cancel.

Dr. D. Jayne and Sons block of nine. The six stamps on the right are of a single font different from the three stamps on the left.

McKesson and Robbins cancel.

Dr. D. Jayne and Sons cancels of two different fonts.

Sen-Sen gum printed cancel from July 1 1898. TB Dunn initials at the bottom. Many of the 2 and 4 cent proprietaries were used to pay the tax on chewing gum.

D. Jayne and son pair with two type of fonts.

McKesson and Robbins.

Cancel for June 30: Schuylkill Valley Bank

Likely used to pay the tax on a bank check by applying the stamp directly to a portion of the check, the Schuykill Valley Bank in Reading, Pennsylvania used a handstamp to cancel this check 109 years ago.

Mercantile Cancels: D. M. Moran & Company

D.M. MORAN & CO.

Importers of Dry Goods

12x & 122 Sixth Street,

xxx, Natoma San Francisco

Enhanced version of stamp above with increased cancel legibility.

Cancel for June 28: Ralph Pomeroy, Brooklyn

I've found one possibility for a Ralph Pomeroy in Brooklyn, but I can't understand why he would have used and handstamped a 2 cent documentary revenue. Maybe his work required repeated use of such stamps. It is possible to trace a Ralph Pomeroy to Brooklyn at the turn of the last century. He was a gynecologist, and oddly, invented tubal ligation without publishing or taking credit for developing the procedure. Two other doctors presented his work at a medical conference after Pomeroy's death.

Cancel Styles: Shields

5 cent documentary roulette with partial handstamp federal style shield

4 cent documentary roulette

4 cent documentary roulette with handstamp federal shield

Cancel for June 26: South Eastern Line

Atlanta railroad company South Eastern Line. Left bottom arrow and guideline at right.

Cancel for June 25: Brainerd and Northern Minnesota Railway

Brainerd, Minnesota was started as a logging town, and is famous regionally and beyond for its connection to Paul Bunyan, the lumberjack, and the town's giant statues to the man. The statue above is at the Brainerd welcome center.

June 25 Brainerd and Northern Minnesota Railway Cancel with guideline at left. The B&NM was built as a logging railroad. By September 1895, the journal Railway Age reported that The B&NM was the greatest logging railroad in the world.

American Express Printed Cancels: Pair with Subtypes F and E

American Express printed cancel pair with cancel subtype F on top and subtype E on bottom.

American Express Printed Cancels: Subtype H

American Express 1901 printed cancel subtype H, where the first 1 of 1901 is under the left leg of the X in AM. EX. CO.

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype G

American Express 1901 printed cancels, subtype G, where the two stamps below have the first 1 of the 1901 year date directly under the EX portion of the cancel. The first stamp below is "normal" with rectangular equal size periods and normally formed letters and numbers.

Subtype G where the first 1 in 1901 is heavy.

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype F

American Express printed cancel subtype F, with 1900 year date. Each of the seven stamps below has the 1 of 1900 directly underneath the EX. of the AM. EX. CO. portion of the cancel. The stamp immediately below is the "normal" variety of subtype F, with 3 roughly equal size and rectangular periods.

Subtype F with rounded period after "AM".

Subtype F with large period after "AM".

Subtype F with small period after "EX".

Subtype F with square period after "CO".

Subtype F with large rounded period after "CO". General overinking of cancel.

Subype F with large rounded period after "AM" and skeleton period after "CO".

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype E

American Express printed cancels subtype E, 1900 year date. Each of the three stamps below has the 1 of the 1900 under the left leg of the X in EX. The following stamp is the "normal" variety of subtype E, with three rectangular equal size periods and normally formed letters.

Subtype E, large periods under AM. and CO. Cancel is overinked.

Large rounded period after CO.

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype D

American Express 1900 printed cancels (1900 and 1901 sans serif only) subtype D, where each of the three stamps below has the 1 of the 1900 under the E in the AM. EX. CO. portion of the cancel. The first stamp below is the "normal" variety of subtype D, with 3 rectangular equal size periods.

Subtype D, large periods after AM and CO. Overinked cancel.

Subtype D, large period after CO. Overall cancel is overinked.

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype C

American Express 189x sans serif printed cancels subtype C, where each of the seven stamps below has the 1 of the 189x year date under the right leg of the X in the AM. EX. CO. portion of the cancel. The following stamp is the "normal" variety of subtype C, with three rectangular equal size periods and normally formed letters.

Reference blog entry from June 14 in which the general scheme used to classify the the different types of American Express printed cancels is shown.

Above stamp: "normal" rouletted variety.

"normal" subtype C hyphen hole stamp.

Subtype C with 3 large periods.

Subtype C with large period after "CO".

Subtype C with square period after "EX".

Subtype C with shortened left leg of X.

Subtype C with shortened right leg of X.