1898 Revenues: Insurance Agents

Insurance Agents

Insurance companies and agents used millions of 1898 documentary revenue stamps, in particular, the 1/2 cent, 4, 40 and 80 cent stamps, though their cancels may be found on every value in the documentary series. This page, and its sister page Insurance Companies, include a list of cancels posted on this website. You are invited to browse the links below and view the scans of canceled stamps.

The US 1898 War Revenue Law taxed insurace policies as follows:

Life Insurance: Policy of insurance...upon life or lives, for each one hundred dollars or fractional part thereof, eight cents on the amount insured: Provided, That on all policies, for life insurance only, issued on the industrial or weekly payment plan of insurance, the tax shall be forty per centum of the amount of the first weekly premium. Fraternal and cooperative societies providing insurance-type programs were exempt from these taxes.

Marine, Inland & Fire Insurance: Each policy ... upon property of any description ... whether against peril by sea or inland waters, or by fire or lightning, upon the amount of premium charged [shall be taxed] one-half of one percent on each dollar or fractional part thereof.

Casualty, Fidelity & Guarantee Insurance: Each policy of insurance ... of the nature of indemnity for loss, damage or bond or obligation...transacting the business of accident, fidelity, employer's liability, plate glass, steam boiler, burglary, elevator, automatic sprinkler ... and each bond undertaking or recognizance, conditioned for the performance of any office...or guaranteeing titles to real estate or mercantile credits...[taxed] one half of one cent on each dollar or fractional part thereof.

The following list of links includes insurance agents, both those dedicated to specific insurance companies and mostly, those operating independently and selling the policies of multiple insurance companies. This list includes but a small fraction of the insurance agents operating during the 1898 tax period. There were likely thousands of agents selling policies, so collecting and identifying these cancels can provide a philatelist with a lifetime project. As such, this list of links is a work in progress, and will be added to as new material is posted and as your editor thinks to append this list.

Avery & Pendleton, Brooklyn, NY

Barbee & Castleman, Louisville, Kentucky

A. E. Barrows Co., Connersville, Indiana

Beach & Sweet, Providence, Rhode Island

Bennett, Hutchinson & Company, Evansville, Indiana

J. J. Benson, Detroit

Benswanger & Hast, Pittsburgh

Birckhead & Son, Baltimore

J. J. Boatwright & Son Insurance, Wilmington, NC

H. J. Bowell & Company, Merrill, Wisconsin

Briggs Carson, Tifton, Georgia

L. Burge, Hayes & Co., Boston

Butler & Haldan, San Francisco

Callender & Co., Peoria, IL

Campbell & Kellner, Buffalo

Silas Chapman, Hartford, CT

Chubb & Son, New York

Frank A. Colley, Boston

Dockery & Co., Waco, TX

Ducat & Lyon, Chicago

W. T. Durand, Milwaukee

Edwards & Kenney, Pittsburg

Ellison, Coolidge & Company, Boston

Ferguson & Wallace, Saginaw, MI

Firman & Webb, Rochester, NY

J. W. Fitzgerald & Co., Little Falls, NY

Walter Fowler, West Superior, WI

Frederick K. Gaston, New York

Gentle & Ludwig, Houlton, Maine

Charles L. Gove, Albany, NY

Heeman, Kranz & Co., Toledo, OH

Holyoke & Russell, Marlboro, Mass

G. Ph. Hunkel & Son, Milwaukee

James F. Hurt, Tazewell, VA

Jerome Ingalls, Lynn, Mass

Judd & Parsons, Holyoke, Mass

W. H. Kirke, Cleveland, Ohio

Thomas B. Knight & Co, Lynn, Mass

J. H. Leiding, Cincinnati, OH

Libby & Hussey, Portland, Maine

H. C. Little & Son, Lewiston, Maine

Merrill, Dodge & Jackson Company, Toledo, Ohio

Meyst & Coates, Milwaukee

George E. Miller & Co., North Adams, Mass

Charles D. Mill, General Agent for New England Mutual Life

Montgomery & Funkhouser, Chicago

Negley & Flanegin, Pittsburgh

Nicholas G. Norcross, Lowell, Mass

Henry M. North, Augusta, GA

Paton & Wheeler, Bradford, PA

Avery Pendleton, Brooklyn

Phillips & Rebhan, Milwaukee

A. J. Reibling & Son, Rochester, NY

G. Rosenblatt, Portland, Oregon

Lake W. Sanborn, Galesburg, IL

D. D. Sayer, Chickasha, Indian Territory

Schermerhorn & Company, Schenectady, NY

James H. Searles, Rome, NY

Sheafer & Lowrey, Pottsville, PA

Silsbee, Baker & Geer, Lynn, Mass

Snow & Barker, Providence, RI

George L. Story, Portland, OR

Tennis & Greeley, West Superior, WI

Tippett & Baker, Dover, Delaware

L. Van Cleef, Niagara Fallls, New York

E. A. Van Trump, Wilmington, Delaware

Walke & Son, Norfolk, Virginia

Ed. E. Walker & Co., Covington, KY

Charles H. Webster, Northfield, Mass

Weed & Parker Brothers, St. Paul, MN

T. K. Wilkins, Lima, OH

Woodsworth-Hawley Co., Buffalo

Worthington & Sill, Buffalo

Fred C. Wright, Springfield, Mass

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Unusual Ink on the 1898 Series Dollar Values

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.

Criteria for Cancels Included in these Updated Lists

The updated lists on this site will not include handstamped cancels. Printed and typed cancels will be included. This differs from the Chappell and Joyce criteria for inclusion.

Joyce used criteria for including cancels in his lists based on Chappell's original criteria. From the introduction of Chappell's original list: "Only the printed and typed cancels will be given consideration in this list. The only exception being those firms who also had private die stamps in this period. The handstamps of these few companies are of general interest and I feel they should be included." I don't think the "general interest" consideration is a strong enough reason to complicate an already complicated set of lists. The handstamps listed by Chappell and Joyce are not printed by definition, they are likely not exhaustive, and by virtue of being handstamps are prone to innumerable types and subtypes. I reason that if a new list is of printed cancels, we should keep it that way, and let others that have have done more work on the subject of proprietary handstamps handle those cancels.

Thus, if you are interested in the handstamp cancels of any of the firms in the updated printed cancel lists, please refer to the excellent work of Robert Mustacich and his Battleship Desk Reference at http://www.battleship-revenues.com/.

The practice of eliminating handstamp cancels from the updated lists will have implications for the revision of cancel types from the Joyce lists. For example, the first few Antikamnia cancel types according to both Joyce and Chappell are handcancels. These cancels will no longer be included as cancel types.

The goal will be to minimize confusion for those who come to collect these cancels and make sense out of them.

Insurance Agents

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