1898 Revenues: 1898 Revenues Greatest Hits: Graded Stamps

Friday, August 12, 2011

1898 Revenues Greatest Hits: Graded Stamps

I haven't posted about graded stamps since 2009, but some of these old posts continue to receive reasonable amounts of traffic via Google. So I thought I would review and link to the five posts on graded stamps, which still seem as relevant now as two years ago:

May 9, 2009: Graded Stamps: Graded Revenues: This post was the first on graded stamps. I had started the site less than two months prior to this post, but the graded stamp phenomena was bothering me quite a bit back then. This and the subsequent post were satirical; I hadn't yet decided to go directly at the marketing gimmick that is graded stamps for fear that I might offend all of philately. After awhile I ceased to fear; now I don't care.

July 27, 2009: Graded Stamps: Degrade your collection with 1898 Revenues today!: This was the second satirical post.

November 28, 2009: Graded Stamps: Perpetuating the Decline of Stamp Collecting: This is the entry on the subject of graded stamps that has real substance, and the one that I like best. It drew a long email from a dealer named Michael Casper who has become a major proponent of graded stamps. His adverts in the new Scott Catalogue at the time had me particularly piqued and I couldn't help writing about them at the end of the post. The post managed to draw his attention.

December 13, 2009: Graded Stamps: Perpetuating the Decline of Stamp Collecting -- Absurd Valuations: This one also drew the attention of a graded stamp promoter. I had used, without permission, a scan of a used US C19 graded stamp that a dealer named Jerry Connolly was selling for $575. Connolly had the stamp on his website and wrote about it. The target was too fat not to go for, and I did. Connolly found my post and asked me take the image down. I did, but the words remain.

December 14, 2009: Graded Stamps: Perpetuating the Decline of Stamp Collecting -- Top 20 Google Hits: This post was an immediate follow-up to the previous day's entry. I was trying to get a handle on the promoters and naysayers of the graded stamp phenomena. This was a first and last attempt.

Its been nearly two years and I haven't written anything on graded stamps since. However, when the new Scott Specialized comes out it might be time once again. Depending on the number and type of dealers advertising graded stamps, and the level at which the catalogue lists graded stamp prices, it may be time to return to the subject.

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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.