Fakes, Frauds and Facsimiles: The 3rd Big 4 Cancel by The J. W. Stowell Printing Company's Philatelic Advertising Bureau

 

A VERY LITTLE

REVENUE

SATISFIES US.

Nearly 13 years ago the subject of 1/8 cent proprietaries with Big 4 cancels was first addressed.  The old post is appended to the end of today's posting for reference.  Over the intervening years, a few new stamps have shown up that would have been good to have added to that early discussion. 

The first item is the stamp above.  Well explained in the older post below, the J. W. Stowell Printing Company produced an advertising stunt to promote their 4 philatelic publications.  Part of the stunt included overprinting copies of RB20 with three different types of overprints.  For years I've only known of the two that both read Big 4.  The third reported overprint was unknown to me.  That missing overprint appears to be the one above.  Again, as in the original post on this subject from January, 2010, I'm interested in the original sales material that J. W. Stowell produced that had these stamps attached.  Those items would help finish off this subject.

Meanwhile, some Big 4 railroad cancels have also shown up, which are offered below:

Original Big 4 post from January 10, 2010:

A couple days ago on January 8 I posted the image of a 1/8 cent proprietary stamp cancelled "BIG 4".  Today I will go a bit more in depth regarding this peculiar cancel.  It has often caused confusion with philatelists due to its non-standard origin.  In a 1975 edition of the American Revenuer there was speculation about whether this cancel had been applied by a midwest railroad known as the Big 4.  This cancel has never had anything to do with that railroad, despite any similarities, and I will illustrate a cancel of the railroad later in this post. 

I have two types of BIG 4 cancels in my collection, the one immediately below in two lines and a one line version that is also illustrated.  The cancel was created as an advertising stunt by the J.W. Stowell Printing Company, which produced four philatelic publications.  To advertise those four, which included the magazines The Perforater, The Herald Exchange, The Philatelic Bulletin, and The New York Philatelist, Stowell created a promotional card that it sent to stamp dealers that purchased philatelic advertisements.  The stamp was attached to the card, and the cancel and the card were printed at the same time. 

From what I can figure, the J.W. Stowell Printing Company is no more, or at least not with that name and not in Federalsburg, Maryland, where it was based. 

BIG

4
Two-line version of the BIG 4 cancel

A copy of this stamp and cancel is currently for sale at Eric Jackson's Ebay store.  The image below shows how Stowell used this type of cancel in a mock postal format.  The image comes from the February 1976 American Revenuer. 

The poor image quality of the image above comes from the American Revenuer as printed in the journal.  I am very interested in securing the real Stowell items.

BIG 4

A single line example of the BIG 4 cancel above, and an image of an example of its use in the 1899 J.W. Stowell advertisment below.  Note the BIG 4 publications are listed in the advert.

There was an old journal known as Midwest Precancel News that specialized primarily in postage stamp precancels but on occasion featured revenue stamps.  Printed cancels on the battleships were in many ways precancels.  The article below was part of a short survey of several of the major companies that used battleship printed cancels, including the Antikamnia Company and the Emerson Drug Company.

Midwest Precancel News, August 1936

Volume 3, Number 12, p. 47

Franklin Smith in this 1936 edition of the periodical Midwest Precancel News wrote about the Big 4 cancel.  Smith notes at the end of this short piece that there are 3 versions of the BIG 4 cancel.  I have only seen 2, and they are the examples from my collection illustrated above.  Despite Mr. Smith's article, by 1975 there was speculation about the exact origin of this cancel in the American Revenuer.  The AR put it straight though by February 1976 when it published a short article by Michael Gromet with an illustration of the advertising card by J. W. Stowell.  According to that article the two line version of the cancel was found on a mock postal cancellation made by Stowell while the single line cancel was found on the card.  Gromet illustrated the article with the images of use included above.

The distractor that has thrown some philatelists off regarding the origin of this cancel was the Big Four railroad - also known as the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway. 

Hand illustrated cancel of the Big Four Railroad from the April 1974

edition of the American Revenuer, page 106

Henry Tolman and Steve Leavitt began a project in 1974 in the American Revenuer to illustrate railroad cancels on the 1898s.  Serialized alphabetically, the cancels were illustrated and reprinted in the American Revenuer.  Unfortunately the effort ended after two editions of the periodical and never got past the "Cs", but they did illustrate a Big Four Railroad cancel.  I do not yet have a stamp with any type of Big Four cancel in my collection, so I've cribbed the Tolman/Leavitt illustration and pasted it above.  Amusingly, in the key in the American Revenuer for this cancel, a typo indicated that this was a cancel for the "Big Sour" Railroad. 

Revenue Exhibits at March Party and a Big 4 Bill of Lading

I'm not certain how the Garfield-Perry Stamp Club's annual exhibition came to be called "March Party" although I've always had a good time whenever I've attended the show.  They do sponsor a nice wine and cheese reception the evening of the show's opening day; perhaps that's the "party".  The club itself is named in honor of James A. Garfield, and Oliver Hazard Perry; for more details go here.

According to list of exhibits, there will be 10 revenue exhibits at March Party totaling 56 frames, although just one exhibit of 1898 revenue material.  Bob Hohertz is showing his Revenue Stamped Paper of the Spanish American War Era exhibit. You too can view much of  the material right here on 1898Revenues as Bob is a major contributor to this site particularly in the area of revenue stamped paper.  Although I've seen his exhibit several times, I'm eager to see it once again as Bob advised in an email some months ago that he was revising the focus away from a "fiscal history" aspect to a more "traditional" presentation.  To learn more about the jargon associated with philatelic exhibits, the basic types of exhibits, and how they are judged take a look at the APS Manual of Philatelic Judging.  

Again, the Garfield Perry March Party Stamp Exhibition runs Friday, March 23 through Sunday, March 25 at the Masonic Auditorium in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

Enough about the show, let's look at another Cleveland related document.

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, & St. Louis Railway Bill of Lading

Bellefontaine to Dayton

April 4, 1899

 

detail of boxed cancel

The C.C.C. & St. L. Ry. Co.

PASSED

APR  6  1899

BELLEFONTAINE, O.

Simon Lindemoth ships a box of meat and a can of "wired?" lard from Bellefontaine Ohio to H. S. Bergen in Dayton, Ohio.  It didn't matter how much material was shipped, nor how far, nor how many rail line transfers were necessary to complete a shipment, a bill of lading covering a shipment from one domestic destination to another was taxed a flat 1-cent.

I won't go into the history of the C.C.C. & St. L. Railway, better known as the BIG 4 Railroad, as that's been briefly covered in several previous BIG 4 blogs.  I wrote about C.C.C. & St. L. Railway Corporate Bonds, Bob Hohertz showed some Parlor Car tickets, and John featured a cancel of a subsidiary line in one of his cancel of the day blogs.  

Here's another C.C.C. & St. L. Railway cancel on a 1-cent R163 documentary that likely also is from a bill of lading.    



C. C. C. & ST. L. RY. CO.

OCT

2

1901

I'd be remiss if I didn't close with a link to the American Revenue Association website; it's their annual meeting that I'm attending at the Garfield-Perry show prompting these Cleveland-related blogs.

 

  

               

Cancel for January 12: The Cincinnati Northern Railroad Company

THE CIN. NOR. R.R. COMPANY

JAN

12

1901

The year of this cancel, the Cincinnati Northern was acquired by the "Big 4" or Cleveland, Cincinatti, St. Louis and Chicago Railway.  In 1906, The New York Central acquired the Big 4, and the acquistion included the Cincinnati Northern. 

A Pair of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & Saint Louis Parlor Car Tickets

Several days ago Frank Sente and I bid on the same lot on eBay - a parlor car ticket with a battleship revenue paying the required tax. I came out the winner by a few dollars, and Frank expressed the hope that I would blog on it some day. I will when I receive it.

This reminded me that I do have a pair of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & Saint Louis Railway parlor or chair car checks, each with a one-cent battleship on the back. These appeared on eBay around nine years ago, when I was putting together my very first exhibit (imprinted parlor car tickets), and I badly wanted them for the first page to show how companies that didn't use imprints paid the tax. I set a high snipe, and got up in the middle of the night to go see if I had won them. Indeed, I had.

Interestingly enough, the tickets were used in December of 1901, after many of the Spanish American War taxes had been repealed.

The CCC & StL Railway operated from June of 1889 until it was folded into the New York Central in 1930.

Bonds with Battleship and New York State Tax on Investment Tax Stamps

This is the final installment of a three-part post about the usage of Battleship revenues in combination with the New York State Mortgage Endorsement, Secured Debt, and Tax on Investment stamps of 1911-1920.

We've covered the Mortgage Endorsement and Secured Debt usages previously. Today we'll look at two Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, & St. Louis (aka The Big Four) Railway bonds taxed during the final, Tax on Investment, phase of New York State's tax on mortgage bonds.

Again, for more details about how all of these three New York State stamp issues were used, I invite readers to Michael Mahler's series of articles on the American Revenue Association's website. The specific article about the Tax on Investment stamps may be found here.

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, & St. Louis Railway

$1,000, 4% Gold Bond Issued June 1, 1900

$4 NY Tax on Investment Stamp added 1918

Michael Mahler scan

The $1,000 bond above was originally issued June 1, 1900 during the Spanish American War tax era and was then properly taxed 50-cents (5-cents per $100 in value or fraction thereof) with an R171 50-cent Battleship revenue. The $4 Tax on Investment stamp, paying New York State's 20-cent per $100 per year mortgage bond tax for two years was added June 12, 1918 when the bond was registered with the Comptroller's office. This is the only bond currently known showing a joint usage of a Battleship revenue with a New York State Tax on Investment stamp.

Octagon $4 Tax on Investment Stamp Cancel:
TAX EXEMPT FOR TWO YEARS
JUN/12/1918
Boxed 50-cent Battleship Stamp Cancel:
C.C.C. & ST. L. RY. Co.
JUN/1/1900
Michael Mahler scan

As Mahler notes in his definitive article, the New York Tax on Investment actually was simply a renewal of the Secured Debt tax, albeit with new increased tax rates and a new set of stamps. Because the new stamps weren't immediately available the old Secured Debt stamps were used for several months. The "carryover" usage of the Secured Debt stamps is illustrated on the C.C.C. & St. L. Railway bond shown below.

It was originally issued on November 1, 1899 and then properly taxed 50-cents with an R171 Battleship revenue. On September 18, 1917 when the owner decided to register it with the State of New York and pay the then current Tax on Investment fee of $10 for five years, a $10 Secured Debt stamp from the 1911 issue was used to pay the fee.

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, & St. Louis Railway
$1,000, 4% Gold Bond Issued November 1, 1899
with $10 Secured Debt Stamp Paying Later 1917 Tax on Investment 5-Year Rate

Boxed 50-cent Battleship Stamp Cancel:
C.C.C. & ST. L. RY. Co.
NOV/1/1899
Boxed $10 Secured Debt Stamp Cancel:
TAX EXEMPT FOR FIVE YEARS
SEP/18/1917

BIG 4 Entire

One month ago Tim Kohler sent in this entire for the J.W Stowell Printing Company's BIG 4 advertising stunt, an item that I don't have in my collection and could not add to my original post on this cancel.  I was able to show a dark image taken from an article I cited on this unusual cancel. 

The contents of the envelope contained an advertisement for four stamp publication products of the J.W. Stowell firm.

Proprietary Printed Cancels: BIG 4

A couple days ago on January 8 I posted the image of a 1/8 cent proprietary stamp cancelled "BIG 4".  Today I will go a bit more in depth regarding this peculiar cancel.  It has often caused confusion with philatelists due to its non-standard origin.  In a 1975 edition of the American Revenuer there was speculation about whether this cancel had been applied by a midwest railroad known as the Big 4.  This cancel has never had anything to do with that railroad, despite any similarities, and I will illustrate a cancel of the railroad later in this post. 

I have two types of BIG 4 cancels in my collection, the one immediately below in two lines and a one line version that is also illustrated.  The cancel was created as an advertising stunt by the J.W. Stowell Printing Company, which produced four philatelic publications.  To advertise those four, which included the magazines The Perforater, The Herald Exchange, The Philatelic Bulletin, and The New York Philatelist, Stowell created a promotional card that it sent to stamp dealers that purchased philatelic advertisements.  The stamp was attached to the card, and the cancel and the card were printed at the same time. 

From what I can figure, the J.W. Stowell Printing Company is no more, or at least not with that name and not in Federalsburg, Maryland, where it was based. 

BIG

4
Two-line version of the BIG 4 cancel

A copy of this stamp and cancel is currently for sale at Eric Jackson's Ebay store.  The image below shows how Stowell used this type of cancel in a mock postal format.  The image comes from the February 1976 American Revenuer. 

The poor image quality of the image above comes from the American Revenuer as printed in the journal.  I am very interested in securing the real Stowell items.

BIG 4

A single line example of the BIG 4 cancel above, and an image of an example of its use in the 1899 J.W. Stowell advertisment below.  Note the BIG 4 publications are listed in the advert.

There was an old journal known as Midwest Precancel News that specialized primarily in postage stamp precancels but on occasion featured revenue stamps.  Printed cancels on the battleships were in many ways precancels.  The article below was part of a short survey of several of the major companies that used battleship printed cancels, including the Antikamnia Company and the Emerson Drug Company.

Midwest Precancel News, August 1936

Volume 3, Number 12, p. 47

Franklin Smith in this 1936 edition of the periodical Midwest Precancel News wrote about the Big 4 cancel.  Smith notes at the end of this short piece that there are 3 versions of the BIG 4 cancel.  I have only seen 2, and they are the examples from my collection illustrated above.  Despite Mr. Smith's article, by 1975 there was speculation about the exact origin of this cancel in the American Revenuer.  The AR put it straight though by February 1976 when it published a short article by Michael Gromet with an illustration of the advertising card by J. W. Stowell.  According to that article the two line version of the cancel was found on a mock postal cancellation made by Stowell while the single line cancel was found on the card.  Gromet illustrated the article with the images of use included above.

The distractor that has thrown some philatelists off regarding the origin of this cancel was the Big Four railroad - also known as the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway. 

Hand illustrated cancel of the Big Four Railroad from the April 1974

edition of the American Revenuer, page 106

Henry Tolman and Steve Leavitt began a project in 1974 in the American Revenuer to illustrate railroad cancels on the 1898s.  Serialized alphabetically, the cancels were illustrated and reprinted in the American Revenuer.  Unfortunately the effort ended after two editions of the periodical and never got past the "Cs", but they did illustrate a Big Four Railroad cancel.  I do not yet have a stamp with any type of Big Four cancel in my collection, so I've cribbed the Tolman/Leavitt illustration and pasted it above.  Amusingly, in the key in the American Revenuer for this cancel, a typo indicated that this was a cancel for the "Big Sour" Railroad.