1898 Revenues: Chicago Board of Trade Members: Barrett, Farnum & Company

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Chicago Board of Trade Members: Barrett, Farnum & Company

BARRETT, FARNUM & CO.

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Langlois scans

By December 1900, the list of CBOT members included many Barretts and a Farnum, but also a Barrett, Farnum firm. It appears the the firm's failure in September 1899 was permanent. See the NYT article below.

B. F. & Co.

JUL 27 1898

These cancels are from a CBOT lot. I would like to confirm that they belong to Barrett, Farnum & Company or to Bartlett, Frazier & Company, both CBOT firms in 1898. If you have an on-document example that can provide the confirmation, please write 1898revenues@gmail.com

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The risks in trading in futures is partly reflected in the article below:

From The New York Times, September 22, 1899:

WHEAT PLUNGE CAUSES FAILURE

Influential Firm of Barrett, Farnum & Co. Forced to Suspend.

BEARS DRIVEN TO COVER.

Wall Street Business Lighter and Quieter--The Wheat Flurry--Live Stock Markets Weak.

Chicago, Sept. 21.--The firm of Barrett, Farnum & Co., a wealthy and influential board of trade concern here, failed today.

The firm had sold heavily short during the past three days, plunging in the expectation that the New York stock panic would result in a break in wheat. The shortage of the firm is variously estimated at from four to five million bushels of the December option.

It was noticed yesterday that Barrett, Farnum & Company were heavy buyers--the heaviest in the local pit, taking in about a million in an effort to cover. The price held firm with a strength that puzzled the theorists in vew of the bearish tone of the news. Again this morning the brokers representing the firm were busy in the pit, but all efforts proved of no avail.

The crash came at 11 o'clock, when the deals went into the clearing house. Barrett, Farnum & Company in a hastily scrawled notice announced the inability of the firm to fulfill its contracts. Then the scene took on the tone of a panic...

Meanwhile, Mssrs. Barrett, Farnum & Company had closed their doors. James Walker, manager of the concern, when seen, declared that he was as much surprised as any one at the suspension, and gave as his opinion that the firm would be able to resume business inasmuch as the subsiding of the panic had left wheat fluctuating narrowly.

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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.