1898 Revenues: Battleship Listing Changes in the 2012 Scott Volume 1 and US Specialized Catalogs

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Battleship Listing Changes in the 2012 Scott Volume 1 and US Specialized Catalogs

In the April 18, 2011 edition of Linn's Stamp News, James Kloetzel, the editor of the Scott Catalog, announced listing changes for several parts of the 2012 catalog, including those for the first issue and battleship documentary and battleship proprietary revenues. Mr. Kloetzel is only specific about changes to the first issue revenues, but it can be inferred that similar changes to the first issue will be made to the battleships. For years we've had to read across columns to discern the differences between rouletted and slot perfed stamps. That will now change to the format present in the front section of the catalog. Presumably the HH listings will be placed below the rouletted listings for each value, and there will now be only two columns for unused and used values.

This past year I did not buy a catalog. 2012 would be a year to buy; the changes will make it a more interesting proposition to receive the new catalog.

The stated reason for this change in the listing style was done due to the requirements of a new database.

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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.