1898 Revenues: R161 Usage Census Update

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

R161 Usage Census Update - 1 Day Travel Insurance

1 Day Travel Policy September 2, 1898 on B. & O. Railroad

The Travelers Insurance Company, Hartford, Conn.

Camden Station Baltimore B. & O. R.R.
inverted date slug of SEP/2/1898

I saved what I consider the best of Bob Patetta's three on-document usages of R161, the 1/2-cent orange battleship documentary, to show last. Bob's Providence Rhode Island check with a combo usage of R161, R162, and R163 to pay the 2-cent bank check tax is stunning. But most fiscal history collectors, I think, prefer usages that are relevant to the purpose for which a stamp was issued.

The 1/2-cent value was created because most documentary insurance taxes, except life insurance, were calculated at 1/2 cent per dollar of premium paid or fraction thereof. And this one-day-travel accident policy for a journey on the B. & O. Railroad with a single one-half cent stamp demonstates that tax rate in the purest way. The premium for the accident policy was just twenty-five cents so only a single 1/2-cent stamp was needed. I wonder how they made change? Actually, the insurance company likely absorbed the tax.

Any usage of the 1/2-cent orange is scarce because the orange version was replaced with a gray version very early in the production of the battleship stamps. The orange color was close to that of the 3/8-cent proprietary issue and to avoid possible confusion, the shade of the 1/2-cent documentary was thus changed to gray.

Only two singular usages of the 1/2 orange documentary have been recorded so far. The other, also used on a travel policy, is pictured near the bottom of Bob Mustacich's website homepage. If anyone has information about any other R161 on-document usages not listed in this census please so advise and, if possible, send scans to 1898revenues@gmail.com

I may be mistaken, but about ten years ago I'm sure someone, whose identity I also don't recall, showed me a check with a block-of-four of the 1/2-cent orange paying the check tax. If it does exist in reality and not just in my imagination, we'd like to add that usage to the census which now stands at seven known usages.

Known today as The Travelers Companies, Travelers traces its history back more than 150 years. Recognized today by its distinctive RED UMBRELLA corporate symbol, Travelers is credited with issuing the first automobile policy, the first commerical airline policy, and the first policy for space travel. Since June 9, 2009, Travelers has been part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

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Unusual Ink on the 1898 Series Dollar Values

THESE STAMPS ARE BOTH SCOTT R191! From fugitive ink to color changelings with unknown origins. These are both copies of R191. Can only exposure to light produce the color changes you see in stamp on the right? Or possibly a soak in bleach or other chemical? I doubt it. These stamps have so many examples of changelings that there must be something else happening. The ink used on this dark green series of stamps was different than that known on any other BEP printed stamps, never mind the varnish square. It is likely the BEP was experimenting with ink on this issue. Inks are discussed further if you click on the stamps.

Collecting Cancels

Welcome to 1898 Revenues, a website that features the stamps used to pay the Spanish-American war taxes imposed by the US Government starting in July, 1898. But while this site features those stamps in general, a focus is on their cancels, and on the firms that applied them. Unlike US postage stamps, which were canceled by the US Post Office and now Postal Service, revenue stamps were ordered to be canceled by their users in such a way that the identity of the user and the date was included in the cancel. This makes the collecting possibilities nearly endless, so that a single variety of stamp, for example, the 2 cent battleship stamp intended to pay documentary taxes, had potentially millions of different users, and therefore as many different cancels. Please browse the site and discover the collecting possibilities, made so much more accessible now through online sales. Cancels on these stamps have become much more interesting and accessible with the massive amounts of archival and historical data available on line. Rather than hours spent in libraries or with heavy volumes to identify cancels, search engines allow for cancel sleuthing at home.

Battleship Proprietary Printed Cancels: Updating the Joyce/Chappell Lists

In the 1950s, Morton Dean Joyce updated a list of printed cancels on the battleship proprietaries compiled by Clarence Chappell. Joyce's is a very long list consisting of more than one hundred companies and thousands of cancel dates. In the years since Joyce completed his list, many new cancel dates have been demonstrated to exist, and an update of the 1950s list is needed.

This site is attempting that update. Using the Joyce/Chappell lists and the former collection of Henry Tolman (ARA #25) as a base, a gradual effort will be made to post updated lists to the best of my knowledge, making a call for those that can contribute new dates and new images of those cancels.

Following in this column are quick links to excel files of these lists by company. Also are links to the posts that I have made on this blog regarding these companies and their cancels.