Imprint Plus Adhesive - Part 3

From an obituary in the Kingston Daily Freeman, Thursday evening edition, February 1, 1917: "Mark Shultis,… formerly a merchant at Saugerties, died Tuesday at Brookline, Mass. For a number of years he was engaged in the commission business in Boston and amassed a fortune there."

One of the best sources of adhesive revenues added to imprinted drafts was Mark Shultis, during his time as a commission merchant in Boston. The following drafts are a selection from those in my collection.

First, a draft originated by Milmine, Bodman & Company's Chicago office (see the blog entry for April 26, 2010.) It asked Shultis to pay $1,410 to their account in New York. Shultis accepted the charge and added an adhesive stamp.

Another Chicago draft, this one from Nye & Jenks Grain Company which, though headquartered in Chicago, had an office in Boston. Again, Shultis added an adhesive stamp to the draft.

This draft was originated by the Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company of Minneapolis, which operated about a quarter of the flour mills in the city at the time. They, Pillsbury-Washburn and Washburn, Crosby accounted for some 97% of the Minneapolis market at the turn of the century. It isn't at all surprising to see that they did business with Shultis.

A handstamp, present on all of the drafts shown this far, is clearly readable on this draft from Hunter Brothers of Saint Louis, and explains why the additional adhesives are present. It reads, "ACCEPTED PAYABLE AT/ FOURTH NATIONAL BANK,/ Boston………..189…/ MARK SHULTIS,/ Per…….."

Internal Revenue Circular 508 contains the following commentary: "Sight drafts drawn upon or issued by any bank, trust company, or any person or persons, companies or corporations, require a stamp, and, if the acceptance of the draft is accompanied by an order to the bank to pay the same and charge to the account of the drawee, this accompanying order requires, in addition, a 2-cent stamp as 'an order for the payment of money.'" Shultis, in making his acceptance, specified that funds were payable at the Fourth National Bank of Boston, and properly added an adhesive to pay the additional tax occasioned thereby.

(In an article in The Check Collector I mistakenly assumed that Shultis did not know what the imprint stood for and accused him of being the type that wore both belt and suspenders. I owe him an apology.)

As proof that Shultis knew exactly what he was doing, the following draft originated by A Fred Brown of Boston properly does not bear an additional adhesive. Since it was already specifically payable to an account in the Fourth National Bank of Boston there was no need for Shultis to make a second payment order, so he didn't add a stamp.

Of course, there is always one exception to almost every rule. Churchill & Company, Grain Merchants in Buffalo, New York wrote the following draft, which Shultis accepted using the same handstamp as before, specifying payment at the Fourth National Bank. However, there is no sign of an additional stamp. Was the stamp removed, or did this one slip by? Or did the manuscript notation "c/o Fourth Nat. Bk" at the lower left side somehow make a difference? Since an attorney was accepting these drafts and presumably knew all of the facets of the tax law, perhaps it did.