1898 Revenue Exhibits at ARIPEX all Garner Gold Awards and Another Phoenix Check

1898 Revenue exhibits did well at ARIPEX!  All four of the 1898 revenue exhibits garnered Gold Medals! 

Additionally, Hermann Ivester's single frame exhibit, The Saint Louis Provisionals 1898, won the show's Single Frame GRAND AWARD, the ARA's award for the best revenue single frame exhibit, and the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitor's special award for the exhibit having the Best Title Page. 

Winning the ARIPEX single frame grand award, automatically qualifies Hermann's exhibit for the national single frame "Champion of Champions" competition at Ameristamp Expo in Little Rock Arkansas in February 2014!  Congratulations Hermann!! 

The ARIPEX multi-frame RESERVE GRAND award went to Frank Sente's 10 frame exhibit, Spanish American War Fiscal History: The US Documentary Taxes 1898-1902.  Sente's exhibit also was awarded the American Revenue Association Grand Award as the best overall revenue exhibit.       

Standing in front of Len McMaster's exhibit from left to right are:

Frank Sente, Len McMaster, Hermann Ivester, and Bob Hohertz

 

1898Revenue blog readers can enjoy much of the material in these four exhibits vicariously. 

 

Len McMaster's, "I. R." Overprinted 1898 1cent Franklin Postage Stamps, exhibit is available online here at 1898Revenues.

 

Many of the 1898 Saint Louis Provisional Issues in Hermann Ivester's exhibit and much more information about them can be found here on 1898Revenues.  And now that Hermann's wonderful material is in exhibit format, we'll be asking him to scan those 16 pages to put up on 1898Revenues.  

 

It was a thrill for me to view Hermann's exhibit as all I've ever been able to do is read about these stamps. Previous owners of the material never exhibited it, Hermann being the first ever to do so! 

 

Bob Hohertz  has blogged extensively about the revenue stamp paper of the 1898 tax era on 1898Revenues. Much of the material in his exhibit, Revenue Stamped Paper of the Spanish American War Tax Era, may be found in his blogs.

 

And finally, individual blogs about some of the items from my exhibit, Spanish American War Fiscal History: The Documentary Taxes 1898-1902, can be found among the On Document Uses blogs on 1898Revenues.    

 

Shows aren't just about exhibits and awards however; more importantly they provide a venue where collectors, exhibitors and dealers can meet, trade information, and discuss mutual interests.  The camaraderie and good fellowship developed from face to face meetings with others having similar interests far outweighs awards. 

 

I finally got to meet 1898 revenue contributor Sean Roberts.  Len McMaster and I discussed a joint article about bisect stamp usages from the 1898 tax era, and I attended the meetings of the American Revenue Association.  And I would be remiss if I didn't provide a link to the American Revenue Association website; it's their annual meeting that I'm attending at ARIPEX prompting these Phoenix-related blogs.

 

Here's an interesting bank check.  Other than being datelined Phoenix, Arizona, it's a generic printed form; essentially it could have been used at any bank!

 

Bank of Arizona check on generic check form

January 27, 1899

 

Drawn by John Lawler against the Bank of Arizona, Prescot, Aziz. (Note mis-spelling of Prescott) it was made payable to "Valley Bank" or bearer.  The pair of one-cent large I. R. overprint stamps paying the 2cent check tax apparently were applied at the bank as they bear a double ring cancel reading: "The Valley Bank"/ "Phoenix, Arizona"

 

John Lawler was a prominent Prescott businessman who had extensive cattle and mining interests.  His papers are available at the University of Arizona.  Perhaps he was on business in Phoenix and picked up this form check at the Valley Bank to secure $200 cash. 

 

As I now live in Prescott, Arizona it's a treasured item in my 1898 collection.

 

             

   

              

           

 

Another $3 R183 On-Document Usage

We're pleased to welcome a new contributor to 1898 Revenues.  Reader Charley Kemp has answered our census call by reporting another on-document usage of R183, the $3 Lake Commerce issue of 1900.    

As noted in our prior blog about usages of R183, I had been looking for one on document for more than 35 years.   Now our census count for R183 is up to three!

Notarized Signature Certification Page from a

Property Conveyance in Mobile County, Alabama

December 8, 1900
Charley Kemp scan

 

Regrettably, the conveyance itself is gone so we don't know exactly what property was conveyed, although it presumably was located in Mobile County, Alabama.  It is interesting to note that there were two separate notarized certifications for this conveyance.   First the standard affirmation by the sellers, in this case Frank P. and Mary Alice Andrews, that they understand the contents of the then attached conveyance and had voluntarily signed it. 

 

Then, below the stamps, there is what I take to be a separate notarized renunciation of dower statement by Mary Alice that reads, 

 

     "I Clara M. Stokes, a Notary Public in and for said State and County, do hereby certify that on the 8th day of December, 1900, came before me the within named Mary Alice Andrews, known to me to be the wife of the within named Frank P. Andrews, who, being examined separate and apart from from the husband touching her signature to the within deed, acknowledged that she signed the same of her own free will and accord, and without fear, constraints or threats on the part of the husband." 

 

      "In witness thereof , I hereto set my hand this 8th day of December, 1900."

Signed Clara M. Stokes  

Notary Public, Mobile County, Ala.

 

detail of stamps and pencancel:

Dec 8 / 1900

F P & M A A
Charley Kemp scan

 

 

That four dollars in tax are attached, an R184 $1 gray overprint Commerce Issue in additon to the $3 Lake Commerce stamp, suggests a property value of more than $3,500 up to $4,000.

Frank P(aul) Andrews, was born in St. Augustine Florida January 26, 1841.  The 1860 census shows him living in a boarding house in Paducah, Kentucky, occupation, day laborer with an "estate" valued at $200.  From that rather humble start he progressed through a number of jobs and by 1884 was listed as a grain dealer, F. P. Andrews & Company in Mobile, Alabama.  He must have become rather substantial because the 1912 directory shows him as the Commissioner of Revenue and Roads for Mobile County.  Andrews also was a Confederate veteran.  The Alabama census of Confederate soldiers lists him as enlisting as a private into Company B of the 1st Kentucky Infantry Battalion around May 1861.  He spent four years in the service being discharged May 10, 1865 in Columbus, Mississippi. He moved to Mobile in 1869 and died there in 1913.    

Thanks, Charley, for submitting this nice usage.  Charley also sent along a list of some other interesting 1898 era taxed documents, so we can look forward to seeing more from his collection in future blogs.      

Ouch! Ouch! A Deed Taxed Twice!

I like documents that bear combination usages; the more stamps the better! This one came in a job lot of stamped deeds purchased on eBay and actually it wasn't the main reason I bought the lot.  Happily though, it was included as it demonstrates a fine point about the 1898 tax law.

$400 Deed for Property in Deer Lodge, Montana

May 8, 1899 



It wasn't until I was sorting through the lot that I noticed that this deed seemed to be taxed incorrectly.  As I've explained in prior blogs, the tax on conveyances was 50 cents for property valued from $100 to $500, and 50 cents for each additional $500 in value.  As this deed bore a total of $1.00 in tax stamps one would have expected the property being conveyed to have a value of between $500 and $1, 000, but instead the sale price was just $400.   At $400 it should only have been taxed 50 cents, not $1.00.

Hmmm!  That incongruity made me look more closely at both the deed and the stamps.  I noticed almost immediately that the upper two R169 25 cent battleships were a joined pair with the bottom single 25 cent stamp slightly overlapping them.  And the twelve R164 2 cent stamps plus the 1-cent I.R. overprint issue add up to another 25 cents.

$1.00 tax paid by

three 25-cent, twelve 2-cent, and one 1-cent stamps

all initialed 

8/99

K H

After reading the deed, it all began to make sense.  One Kate Hartlee is selling two lots in Deer Lodge Montana to C.G. Glass and J.H. Meyers.  I'll skip the boilerplate and go straight to the description:

    "Lots numbered nineteen (19) and twenty (20) in Block numbered twenty (20) of the original townsite of Deer Lodge Montana according to the official plat and survey on file in the office of Clerk and Recorder of said Deer Lodge County, Montana.

      It is understood by and between the parties to this instrument and deed, that the grantor hereby conveys unto each of said grantees an undivided one-half interest (my emphasis) in and to the said Lots 19 & 20 in Block 20 in the town and county of Deer Lodge Montana."

I can almost hear the justice of the peace before whom Kate Hartlee appeared to both sign and affirm the document: 

"...Ah, well, hmmm, you know Kate , the way you have written up this here deed you've got two separate transactions going on and...well...ah... I think to be completely legal we have to tax each of them as separate transactions"    

I may have unfairly put words in the mouth of the JP, but all of this does serve to illustrates the fine point that the documentary War Taxes were not levied against actual documents, but rather the transactions represented by or within those documents.  While there was but one deed, it represented two separate conveyances, each of which was subject to tax.  And the appropriate tax for two sales of property at $200 each would have been $1.00.

Back to the stamps.  I'm guessing the pair of 25-cent R169 battleships originally was affixed with the expectation that only 50 cents was going to be required, but when it instead was discovered that an additional 50 cents was required, and only one additional 25 cent stamp was at hand the parties scrounged up more commonly available 2 cent and 1 cent stamps to pay the remaining balance due.  Regardless of exactly how it all came about, it's an interesting document and a welcome addition to my collection.                  

A Conveyance Taxed $1,100 - Sale of the Parsons Paper Company

Yesterday we blogged about a bill of sale for the conveyance of some Indian Territory property that was sold for just $15 and taxed just 10 cents.

Today we consider the 1899 sale of the Parsons Paper Company, Holyoke, Massachusetts, the conveyance tax on which totaled a whopping $1,100!  Given that the tax on conveyances was 50 cents for property valued from $100 to $500 and an additional 50 cents for each additional $500 in value infers the Parsons company and property were valued at $1.1 million, although the sale price on the deed is given as "...in consideration of One Dollar and other valuable considerations..."  

Even if property was given away, as with a quit-claim deed, the transaction, i.e. the conveyance of the property, was taxed at the property's real value.     

Deed to the Parsons Paper Company

Holyoke, Massachusetts

June 26, 1899

The deed was not recorded by the Hampden County Register of Deeds until a month later on July 26, 1899, a week after Aaron and Edward Bagg personally appeared before a justice of the peace on July 19 to have the document and their signatures certified. 

The $100 R179 and the pair of $500 R180 tax stamps are dated July 25, 1899.  The purchaser, the American Writing Paper Company, a newly incorporated price-controlling trust coalition of thirty-two paper mills located in five states, paid the conveyance tax as each of the stamps bears a rubber handstamp cancel with the initials, Am. W. P. Co., plus the month and an abbreviated year date, JULY '99, prefixed with the exact July date, 25, in pen.  Usually, high value stamps also have cut-cancels, as an added security measure to prevent their reuse, but these stamps are all uncut. 

This document brings to five, the number of on-document usages of the $500 Alexander Hamilton Portrait Documentary issue, this being the sole reported usage of a pair.       

Am. W. P. Co.

25 JULY '99



Conveyances are of particular interest because the tax levied upon them was based upon the value of the transaction rather than a flat fee as was the case for many transactions such as for checks, bills of lading, and numerous other taxed transactions.  So we see conveyance transactions taxed from ten cents to more than $1,000.  And deeds are fairly common as they were kept as important estate documents, not generally disposed of as were many other documents whose relevance or value did not continue beyond the completion of the transaction.

Parsons Paper Mill #2 @ 1899

The Parsons Paper was founded in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1853 by Joseph Clark Parsons.  Within a decade Parsons was the largest writing paper and envelope company in the country and Holyoke had become "The Paper City."  To read a brief history of the company visit this link to the Holyoke Public Library's online exhibit gallery.  The firm closed in 2005 and facility destroyed by an arson fire in 2008.

  

A Conveyance Taxed Just 10 Cents

The War Revenue Law prescribed a 50 cent tax on the conveyance of property valued from $100 to $500 plus 50 cents for each additional $500 in value.  So how was property valued at less than $100 treated?

 Bill of Sale

For Land Parcel Valued at $15 in

Westville, Cherokee Nation, Northern District, Indian Territory

May 3, 1900
 

Although the 1898 Law act did not specifically address the sale or conveyance of property valued at less than $100, as illustrated by this bill of sale documenting the sale of Lot 6 in Block 42 in the town of Westville, Indian Territory, such conveyances were taxed 10 cents under the Law's catchall provision that required any legal certificate, not otherwise specified in the Act, to be taxed a flat 10 cents.
 

Bill of Sale

Mary E. Nummy to E. K. Manning

stamps initialed

E. K. M.

5/3/1900

The property located in Westville, and bordered by Cherokee, Railroad, Locust, and Delaware streets, was sold for $15 via a bill of sale and the 10 cent tax paid with five copies of the 2 cent, R164 documentary issue.  The form is pre-printed, so these property bills of sale must have been common transactions in the town of Westville and presumably elsewhere.  And while termed a Bill of Sale, it reads like a Deed, i.e. "...do hereby give, grant, bargain, sell, convey, and quit-claim....." 

It appears the intent of the Law was to require all conveyances of property be taxed, but to restrict the higher rate to property valued at a minimum of $100 and to limit the tax on property valued at less than $100.

A google satellite view shows that today, the lot appears to accommodate three residences plus some outbuildings.



What Are The Odds? Not One, But Two $3 R183 On-Document Usages

Between us, my good friend J. W. Palmer and I have been searching for an on-document usage of the $3 Lake Commerce Issue of 1900 for more than 50 years.  I know several other 1898 tax era document collectors who also have been searching for such a usage.  Happily the quest is over, at least for Palmer and me, as we BOTH found usage examples on eBay within a month of each other last Fall.  To date they are the only reported on-document usages of this stamp.

The lake-colored $3 R183 by itself is not an inexpensive stamp.  In Scott's U.S. Specialized Catalogue it lists for $275 in mint condition and $52.50 in used condition.  For Palmer and me to find on-document usage examples -- what's the word they use in those Visa commercials -- PRICELESS! 



  $3,500 Warranty Deed

Property in Indianapolis, Indiana

February 25, 1901
 

My find came first, in a job lot of 11 deeds, only two of which bore stamps.  I almost went by it as I scrolled through some search listings.  In the small photo I could see one deed just had a 50-cent R171 battleship stamp on it and I figured the red stamp on this deed was probably just the more common $1 carmine R182 Commerce Issue.  Luckily, after scrolling through a few more listings, I decided I should go back and take a closer look.  Boy, was I ever glad I did! When I saw it was a $3 stamp, I recall jerking forward to within inches of my computer screen in shocked disbelief  to take a closer look to make sure it really was a $3 stamp!  Wow, yes, it was!  And the week long wait to see if anyone else had found it seemed an eternity.
 

The tax on deed transfers at this time was 50 cents for property valued from $100 to $500 and 50 cents for each additional $500 in value.  So the proper tax on a deed documenting the sale of a $3,500 property was $3.50, paid here with the $3 R183 and a 50 cent R171.  Usually collectors try to avoid stamps with cut cancels, but I'm happy these have them as the pen cancels don't "tie" them to the document, but the cut cancels, which extend through the document itself, do so.

pencancel on both stamps reads:

P.(auline) E.(dgarton)

2/25/01

double-click image to enlarge

Amazingly Palmer found another R183 usage example, again on eBay, just a couple of weeks later!  

$3,000 Warranty Deed

Property in Hyde Park, Kansas City, Missouri

March 14, 1901

J. W. Palmer scan

pencancel reads:

H.(ugh) J. M.(cGowan)

Mrh. 14,

1901.

Palmer's find also appears on a warranty deed, in this instance a nice single stamp usage properly paying the $3 tax on a property that sold for $3,000.  Like me, he almost missed this lot as the seller had cropped the listing photo to zoom in on just the stamp, so anyone scrolling rapidly through listing results could easily have mistaken it as just a listing of a used stamp.  I missed it for that reason, but Palmer, either with more patience or better eyesight, or both, caught a glimpse of paper around the stamp as he scrolled through his search listings.  He though had missed the listing I had found.  

J. W. and I periodically check what each other has bought on eBay.  When I noted he too had been fortunate to find this R183 usage, I called to congratulate him as it was a significant find; I also wanted to let him know I had recently found one too.  "Yeah", he said, "I saw you had found one and was going to call, just hadn't gotten around to it."  We chatted about how easy it is to miss items because of how sellers choose to picture, describe, and list items; we both have been lucky to find 1898 revenue material in obscure eBay categories, or that has otherwise been poorly described or pictured.

Both Palmer and I periodically exhibit our 1898 material at stampshows. We laughed about how unassuming and vanilla-looking these deeds appear.  Neither document is ornate like an engraved stock certificate, nor do they include an unusual mixture of stamps, or bear colorful cancels.  Quite frankly, they look pretty bland on exhibit pages, just as they do in this blog.

We discussed the difficulty of highlighting their significance in an exhibit; especially how hard it is, even with carefully worded title pages and exhibit synopses, to convey their importance to exhibit judges who, to be fair, could just as easily overlook them as they scroll across one's exhibit pages, as we each did when reviewing eBay listings.   Yes, one can stategically place an item within an exhibit frame and include a note like, "One of two known" on the page, but they are just common deeds after all, albeit with uncommon usages of an uncommon stamp.  

We talked about how long we each had been looking for such a usage knowing that none of the major revenue dealers had ever handled one.  We simply were amazed that we each had been fortunate to find one within a month of each other.  What are the odds, indeed? Yup, that was a pun.

We're beginning to do usage censuses for some of the lesser known 1898 tax era on-document stamp usages and for some lesser known types of documents, like ocean passage tickets, so if anyone can report another R183 on-document usage please contact us, with scans if possible, at 1898revenues@gmail.com

We'll discuss some other interesting deeds in upcoming blogs.       

                



A Warehouse Receipt from the San Francisco Bay Area

I thought I'd followup my blog about an ocean passage ticket from San Francisco with one about a Bay Area warehouse receipt. 

The War Revenue Law of 1898 placed a twenty-five cent tax on "Warehouse receipt(s) for any goods, merchandise, or property of any kind held on storage in any public or private warehouse or yard, except receipts of agricultural products deposited by the actual grower thereof in the regular course of trade for sale."

Most of the warehouse receipts I've seen have been for the storage of whiskey or other spirits in a bonded warehouse.  In fact, this Port Costa Warehouse and Dock Company receipt for the storage of wheat is the only non-alcohol related receipt I have seen.  It's an over-sized document measuring 16" x 6 1/2" including the stub to which it had been repasted.  The image below showing the receipt fully detached from the stub is a paste-up of two scans.

Port Costa Warehouse and Dock Company Storage Receipt #3577

8,372 Bags of Wheat Weighing 1,098,871 Pounds

San Francisco, October 19, 1898

As docketed on the back of the receipt, the wheat was stored in three separate warehouse locations:

•  2/468  330,783 lbs (2459 sks)
•  2/52    399,377 lbs (3063 sks)
•  1/52    368,711 lbs (2850 sks)
•          1,098,871 lbs (8372 sks)

It's written out on the front as: "Ten hundred ninety-eight thousand, eight hundred seventy-one pounds of wheat."  That's a lot of wheat, although according to one source the Port Costa Warehouses were capable of holding 60,000 tons (120,000,000 pounds) of grain.  So this deposit of wheat took up less than one percent of the warehouse's capacity.

View of Property of the Port Costa Warehouse and Dock Company

Probably from an earlier time the somewhat idyllic view above mostly shows rigged vessels rather than the steamships that likely filled the Port Costa harbor by 1898. 

All that remains today are the pilings that supported the

Port Costa Warehouse and Dock

 photo by walkersplanet from the panoramio website

  

detail of 25-cent R169 stamp

purple undated cancel reads:

G. W. McNEAR.

G. W. McNear, Sr.

G.(eoge) W(ashington) McNear was born in 1837 in Maine to seafaring stock.  By the time he died in 1909 he was known as the "Grain King of California."  

As a teen he left Maine for New Orleans and by age eighteen was the master of a sailing vessel and for six years commanded packets which plied in Mississippi Sound.  After a few years' residence in New Orleans he returned to Maine and then came to California arriving at San Francisco, August 2, 1860. 

He became a partner of his brother, John A. McNear, in a grain business in Petaluma.  By the 1870s he had established his own grain business in San Francisco and by incorporating his knowledge of both shipping and grain became the largest exporter of grain in California for more than twenty-five years. At one time he was the owner of more than one thousand acres of wheat land in various parts of the state, while his warehouses at Port Costa were capable of holding sixty thousand tons of golden grain. 

To read more of his biography from The History of San Francisco, California click here.

By the time this receipt was issued, the warehouse business was being managed by G. W. McNear, Jr. whose signature it bears.  The grain depositor is listed as Eppinger & Co., another grain export company.  The Eppinger firm later experienced financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy in 1903.  Eventually its principals, Herman and Jacob Eppinger, were indicted for fraud.  Apparently they avoided conviction when evidence against them was destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.   

Port Costa was founded in 1879 as a landing for the railroad ferry Solano, owned and operated by the Central Pacific Railroad.  McNear took advantage of the locale by buying property and building a 20,000 foot dock and warehouse operation that allowed him to load up to 10 ships at a time literally directly from grain cars.  He also laid out and developed the town of Port Costa.  Packed with both stevedores and railroad men it must have been a wild place in the late 1800s. 

Today the wheat ships and train ferries are gone, but Port Costa remains a popular tourist destination.   Today, McNear's Port Costa headquarters building, built in 1897, is home to a trendy restaurant, the Bull Valley Roadhouse.         



Finally A $3 Ocean Passage Ticket -- The Pacific Steam Navigation Company(PSNC)

Frank Sente is back with this post on Ocean Passage Tickets.

It's been nearly two years since we last blogged about Ocean Passage Tickets, and I'm now pleased to report that an example demonstating the $3 tax rate has surfaced.  Now examples are known for all three tax rates: $1 for tickets not exceeding $30; this $3 example for tickets costing more than $30 and not exceeding $60; and $5 for tickets costing more than $60.

Pacific Steam Navigation Company Steamer Colombia  

On March 6, 1901, J.(ohn) O.(scar) Meyerink, a commission merchant from San Francisco, booked first class passage from San Francisco to Punta Arenas on the Pacific Steam Navigation Company Steamer Colombia. 

The Pacific Steam Navigation Company Ocean Passage Ticket

San Francisco, California to Punta Arenas, Costa Rica

March 6, 1901   

At first I assumed the destination, Punta Arenas, referred to the Chilean port city by that name in the Strait of Magellan.  However as I began to research the document and the various travel endorsements penned upon the back side where the $3 stamp is located (see image below), I'm now quite certain that Meyerink's ticket instead was for Puntarenas, then a major port city on the west coast of  Costa Rica.

According to this destination and rate chart for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company as published in the Pacific Line Guide to South America, the company's routes did not extend south of Valparaiso, Chile and note that the reduced cabin rate for "Punta Arenas", Costa Rica is listed as $40, the price of this ticket.  Flip back a page in the rate chart, and you'll see that the rate previously had been $80.  Apparently the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, a British firm, was having a rate price war with the better established and more popular Pacific Mail Steamship Company, a U.S. firm, but that's another story.  I also was particularly interested to note mention of  "U.S. Revenue Stamp Additional" in the heading of the PSNC rate chart.

Reverse of PSNC Ticket
$3 R174 Commerce Issue tied by blue double ring cancel of
The P.S.N.C. Co. and C.S.A. de V.
MAR
6
1901
San Francisco

stamp and cancel detail

(double click to enlarge)
 

The stamp is damaged, creased, and has a cut cancel, but hey, it's the only example of a $3.00 ocean passage usage that's ever been reported, and only the ninth ocean passage ticket recorded from the Spanish American War tax era.
 

Five separate endorsements appear on the reverse side of the ticket.  First, a typed endorsement at right reading:

 

Stop-over between San Francisco and Corinto (Nicaragua)

good for three (3) months.

Balfour, Guthrie & Co.

Signature

Genl Agts.

 

That stop-over provision was standard practice for the firm, applicable to every ticket sold, as it appears as one of the purchase conditions stated on their rate chart.
 

NOTE:      For a map showing the location of Meyerink's various stopover

locations that are detailed in the following text, go to the end of this blog.  

 

The red boxed handstamp at the top seems to be a ship purser's marking in Spanish documenting the first leg of Meyerink's journey from San Francisco to Champerico, a Guatemalan port town. We don't have other examples to compare to, but it appear to read as follows:
 

De San Fc. (San Francisco?) a Champerico (Guatemala)

por "Colombia" illegible Z2? or 32?

Signature CONTADOR (PURSER)
 

I'm guessing it was applied to the ticket when the Steamer  Colombia arrived at Champerico and Meyerink disembarked. The handwritten endorsement to the left of the red boxed handstamp also appears to be in the purser's hand and as part of it extends across the left edge of the box, it likely was written directly after the boxed endorsement was completed.  It appears to read as follows:
 

Good for P.S.N.Co

steamer only from Champerico

to Punta Arenas. Signature

26/3/01 (March 26, 1901)
 

Nine days later it seems that Meyerink traveled further down the coast of Guatemala from Champerico to San Jose aboard the Chilean C.S.A. de V. steamer Tucapel. The relevant endorsement which appears to the right of the $3 tax stamp reads:

Champerico a San Jose

v.(ia)  Tucapel  3

9/4/901 (April 4, 1901) Signature

  

Compania Sud-Americana de Vapores

Chilean Steamer Tucapel

Built in 1900 and primarily a cargo ship, the Tucapel, laden with oranges, sank off the coast of Chile in 1911.

The final ticket endosement, to the left of the cancel tying the $3 tax stamp to the ticket, documents travel from La Union, El Salvador to Corinto, Nicaragua, both ports of call on the PSNC route chart, via the steamer Chile.  The endorsement in green ink reads:

La Union to Corinto

por "Chile" v. 4

May 3/01

Signature

How Meyerink got from San Jose, Guatemala to La Union, El Salvador is unclear.  Perhaps by land transporation, but I suspect by sea via an undocumented PSNC steamer voyage.  I'm betting that sometime between April 4, when he left for San Jose, Guatemala and May 3 when he left La Union, El Salvador there was another voyage between those locales where Meyerink showed his ticket and the ship's purser simply allowed him to embark and travel without bothering to endorse the ticket. That's conjecture on my part, but I doubt that land travel between San Jose and La Union would have been easy and it would have added to his expenses. 

So why did this ticket survive?  Generally, when one traveled they surrendered their ticket to the ship's purser upon boarding.  In this instance as Meyerink had the opportunity to make stop-overs on his voyage to Punta Arenas, he either was allowed to keep his ticket after it was properly endorsed, or it was returned to him at each point of disembarkation so that he could reboard another vessel to continue his voyage. 

While Meyerink's ticket was written for travel to Punta Arenas, Costa Rica I suspect his final destination all along was Corinto, Nicaragua.  The typed endorsement allowing for stop-overs specifically refers to Corinto, not Punta Arenas.  And if one looks carefully, it appears the handstamped word "Corinto" appears underneath "Punta Arenas" on the face of the ticket. 

       

faint "Corinto" underneath "Punta Arenas" on ticket

Again, while simply conjecture on my part, I suspect that when Meyerink bought the ticket he specified a final destination of Corinto and in the course of purchasing the ticket a helpful agent pointed out that the price of a ticket to the further port of Punta Arenas, Costa Rica was the same $40 fee as for the Nicaraguan port of Corinto.  So why not have the ticket written for Punta Arenas so that should Meyerink so decide he could have the opportunity to travel to that further destination?  Per PSNC's rate chart, tickets from San Francisco to Corinto, San Juan del Sur, and Punta Arenas all cost $40.

Thus when he disembarked in Corinto, Meyerink was allowed to keep his ticket as it still allowed him the opportunity to travel on to Punta Arenas.  I'm betting he did not travel beyond Corinto, Nicaragua.

Further, in seeking information about J. O. Meyerink, I discovered he was a stamp collector!  His name appeared in the March 1893 Secretary's Report of the American Philatelic Association (became American Philatelic Society in 1908) as a reinstated member.  APS confirmed that Meyerink originally joined in 1891 and became a stockholder in 1893 after the APA incorporated.  He apparently let his membership lapse in 1894.  That he was a collector, I'm sure gave him added incentive to keep this document , not only as a souvenir of a trip, but also because it had that $3 tax stamp on it.  Thank goodness for stamp collectors!

I found him listed in several San Francisco directories at 428 Sansome Street as a shipping and commission merchant, one of which indicated he was a fruit wholesaler.  An 1895 suit against a California salt manufacturer who delivered inferior salt through Meyerink to a Guatemalan firm and an 1894 report of dealings with a Guatemalan coffee plantation offer confirmation of his Central American business dealings and connections. 

His listing in the 1900 census indicated he was born in Germany in 1862, immigrated  in 1880, and became a U. S. citizen in 1892.  In 1884 he married Katie Meyer and they had four children between 1887 and 1895.  Apparently he died sometime before 1910 as he doesn't appear in that census, but Katie, listed as a widow, and the four children are included in the 1910 census.

Most assuredly this was a business trip to either visit existing merchant contacts or to establish new business connections.  It must have been a fancinating trip and a great time to be living in San Francisco.       

Central America Map showing the location of the

five ports referenced on Meyerink's ticket:

1. Champerico, Guatemala

2. San Jose, Guatemala

3. La Union, El Salvador

4. Corinto, Nicaragua

5. Puntarenas (Punta Arenas), Costa Rica

Anyone having knowledge of other taxed ocean passage tickets is invited to report them, with scans if possible, to 1898revenues@gmail.com.



  

Burlington & Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska Livestock Contract

Contract for hauling a load of livestock on the Burlington & Missori River Railroad in Nebraska listing the corporate family of associated railroads including the:

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad

Chicago, Burlington & Northern Railroad

Hannibal & St. Jospeph Railroad

St. Louis, Keokuk, & Northwestern Railroad

Kansas City, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs Railroad

Chicago, Burlington & Kansas City Railway

The one cent documentary tax stamp contains a B&MRRR printed cancel from 1899.

The contract was for the shipment of 76 head of livestock from Doniphan, Kansas to Kansas City.  Doniphan was on the B&MRRR in Nebraska mainline.

Railroads were often used at this time to move livestock on the hoof to processors in big cities like Omaha, Kansas City, and Chicago.  The processors would then ship dressed meat in refrigerated or iced train cars, often referred to as "reefers".

New York Stock Brokers & Chicago Board of Trade Members: Raymond, Pynchon & Company

Raymond Pynchon likely stock trading cancels:

RAYMOND, PYNCHON & CO.

NOV 22 1900

NEW YORK.

RAYMOND,

NOV

21

1901

PYNCHON & Co.

Langlois scans

Stock memorandum of sale from Raymond, Pynchon for 100 shares of Southern Railway

********

Raymond Pynchon likely futures trading cancel:

Raymond, Pynchon & Compay cancel

David Thompson scan

Raymond, Pynchon also traded on the Chicago Board of Trade.  Staff with membership in the CBOT included George M. Pynchon, #5422.

********

Raymond, Pynchon, though a loyal tax payer in the Southern Railway transaction above, was charged by the New York State Attorney General in late 1910 for reusing cancelled New York State tax stamps.

From The New York Times, Jaunary 1, 1911:

BROKERS SUED FOR TAX STAMP FINES

Raymond, Pynchon & Co. Said to Have Used Old Stamps on Stock Sales Slips.

PENALTY OF $500 PROVIDED

Attorney General's Office Investigating Other Cases--Member of Firm Says That Charge Is Untrue.

Frederick C. Tanner, Chief Deputy Attorney General in charge of the New York City offices, announced yesterday that he had instituted a suit against the brokerage firm of Raymond Pynchon of 111 Broadway for amounts aggregating $180,000 representing fines for using cancelled stock tax stamps.

Every brokerage house is compelled by law to attach transfer tax stamps to the memoranda of sales representing business transacted on teh Stock Exchange at the rate of 2 cents for each $100 of par value.  The number of stamps sold by the State runs into the millions each year.  The Controller's office has complained that brokers' clerks and office boys have been cheating the State and their employers by using stamps after they have been cancelled.  The Controller's detectives have found several times in the past a consideratble traffic in cancelled stmaps and have contended that these have been used in place of new ones.  Each stamp is supposed to be cancelled by the broker as soon as it is attached to a bill of sale, and a fine of $500 is provided for the use of cancelled stamps.

When the tax was first imposed five years ago the method of cancelling these stamps was by initialling them in ink.  This method was changed to a punch system, each stamp having a series of perforations punched in it after being used.

The $180,000 which the Attorney General's office seeks to collect from Raymond, Pynchon & Co. represents the fines on 300 stamps bearing Raymond, Pynchon & Co.'s perforation which the authorities will try to prove had been used a second time by that firm.  These stamps, it was said, had been doctored by pasting paper on their backs, corresponding in color to the face of the stamp, in order to hide the perforations.

Attorney General Tanner will conduct the case for the Controller's office, and said yesterday that other brokerage firms were being investigated and that more suits would soon be filed.

Harry Raymond, head of Raymond, Pynchon Co., said last night that the charge had used cancelled stamps was not true.  He said that it was impossible, either by carelessness or dishonesty on the part of clerks for such a thing to happen, as the stamps were purchased in sheets under responsible supervision.

He explained that while the Deputy Attorney General might have doctored stamps in his possession, they had gone out of Ryamond, Pynchon & Co.'s office properly cancelled on the original use.  The firm was not reponsible for what may have happened to the stamp after the sales slips went into the possession of third parties.  He said he expected to have no difficulty in disproving the charge.

New York Stock Brokers: Halle & Stieglitz

A CDS cancel by Halle & Stieglitz on a R175 pair was featured on this site back in January.  Yesterday, a CDS cancel by Haven & Stout featured.  For both of these cancels, the firm's names are spelled out, leaving no doubt about the origin of each cancel.  Yet in each case, the brokerage firm's initials are H & S. 

For years I've had mulitple off-document examples of this cancel in my collection:

H.  &  S.

MAR

28

1901

I was never sure of the originator of this cancel, whether Halle & Stieglitz, Haven & Stout, or another.  Fortunately, a packet of broker Memoranda of Sale arrived awhile back and I have an answer.

In the same batch of MOSs were other H&S documents that include several examples of a long straight-line cancel:

If you have another example of a different type H&S cancel, please contact me at 1898revenues@gmail.com.

New York Stock Brokers: Austin M. Greer

AUSTIN M. GREER,

SEP

19

1898

NEW YORK. 

 detail of Greer's double-ring oval cancel

Austin Greer doesn't appear in King's Views of the New York Stock Exchange 1897-1898, the resource guide we've been using to help identify the brokers whose cancels appear on various 1898 revenues.  Happily his cancel is readily identifiable, an attractive double-ring oval, oddly punctuated with a comma after his name and period after New York.  The 20-cents in tax stamps used for the transaction properly pays the 2-cent per hundred dollar rate for the resale of 10 shares of stock whose original value was $100 per share.   

Perhaps Greer, at this time, simply was dealing under the auspices of  Charles M. Schott, Jr. who became a member of the NYSE in 1869 and whose name appears on the Greer memo.  Schott himself though apparently was still independently active as John previously blogged about a CHAS. M. SCHOTT, JR. & CO. cancel on a 40-cent battleship issue.  Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about NYSE transactions can explain the purpose of the "Account of C. M. SCHOTT, Jr." endorsement on the Greer sales memo or what relationship might have existed between Greer and Schott.  

The buyer, Boody, McLellan & Co.,  to whom Greer sold these 10 shares of Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad stock, was a recognized NYSE member firm, adding further credence to Greer's acceptance "on the street" even if he was not then an NYSE member.        

Greer seems to have been in the brokerage business at least since the late 1880s, as a 1903 New York Times article refers to a fifteen year employee as embezzling funds from the firm.  Small wonder, as Greer reportedly often was absent from the firm's office for weeks at a time, leaving his employee to run the operation. The article makes no mention of Mr. Schott, so whatever relationship Greer had with him in 1898 may have been dissolved by 1903.