Wells Fargo & Company Express Shipper's Forwarding Receipt Book

David Thompson sent scans of a 1900 Wells Fargo shipper's receipt book.  Six years ago a page from a similar receipt book was posted on this site.  But in this example, David sent scans of a complete book that he has in his possession.  Of greatest interest is the instruction page, which include guidance on where to place the revenue stamps.

R163s are found in the book in addition to a few 1cent postage stamps, presumably used when the IR stamps were unavailable. 

 

A Degraded Battleship

Several years ago I wrote several posts about the curse of grading on the hobby of stamp collecting.  Those posts can be found here. 

 

 R163 "E Graded Superb 100"

Currently Buy It Now on Ebay for $100

"eGraded" as Superb 100 by eGrade, certificate 370.  Go out and buy this one right away.  And make sure you pay double because the price is so dang low -- hit "Make Offer" and enter 200 bucks you schmuck.

Geez.  I figured we wouldn't see much grading with revenue stamps, especially with a stamp that is worth about a tenth of a cent, like an R163 roulette.  At least this humble stamp has all sorts of cool incarnations and can be very collectible, given a range of cancels and uses on piece.  But this stamp is a prime example of taking that one in a couple of hundred stamps out of a pile of R163s and assigning to it a ridiculous description and price.  Like I wrote years ago, this stamp has its high value because of the grade and certificate, not because of its inherent worth as a well centered stamp.  The cert is rare.  Not the stamp.  This is clearly a case of a dealer fishing for suckers.  Are you one?