1898 Revenues: R184b - Surcharge Omitted Variety

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

R184b - Surcharge Omitted Variety

There's an old saw that goes, "can't see the forest for the trees," meaning losing sight of the big picture by concentrating on the details. In this instance the corollary, "can't see the tree for the forest" applies.

I'm embarrassed to admit that a gray $1 Commerce, R184b, issue with a missing surcharge (the tree) has resided unidentifed in one of my stockbooks (the forest) for 10, 20, or maybe even more years. I've long collected both handstamp and printed cancels on the battleships, both the documentaries and the more popular proprietaries; but have never paid much attention to cancels on the dollar-value Commerce issues. I've simply accumulated any that have come in job lots or collections in a stockbook.

But knowing of John's interest in cancels, at the last minute, I took that stockbook along to the Minnesota Stamp Expo where we met this Summer while he was visiting family in the area. I told him to just take any of the gray Commerce Issue cancels that interested him as I was never going to do anything with them. When he came to the stamp illustrated below he delayed, looked closely, then suggested that I might want to keep this one. Dah, I still didn't notice the missing overprint when he showed the stamp to me, and I'm a detail oriented person -- more apt to miss the forest for the trees than the other way around! Thanks again John, for spotting it!

Scott R184b surcharge missing variety

C. ELEV. CO.

MAR

1901

Only the $1 value of the gray Commerce Overprints is listed in the Scott Specialized as having a missing surcharge. There are some other surcharge varieties listed for the later 1902 green Commerce issues with ornamental surcharges, but I've checked my stockbook thoroughly(grin), and I don't have any of those.

The C. ELEV. CO. cancel might be from the Cargill Elevator Company, as they were a prominent grain elevator company at the time, but that's simply a guess. Today, Cargill is one of the nation's largest privately held companies.

Can anyone confirm Cargill as using the C. ELEV. CO. cancel, or offer examples of any of the surcharge varieties of the green Commerce Overprint issues? If so, please contact us at 1898revenues@gmail.com.

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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.