Cancel for November 10: Elgin National Watch Company

As this website has spent a bit of column space over the past couple of months reviewing Richard Fullerton's battleship documentary printed cancel list, there are many questions and issues that have arisen to this correspondent.  One question has been Mr. Fullerton's choice to exclude other users of printed cancels on the documentary issues, including Provident Savings, The Girard Trust Company, and a county clerk's office in Vermont.  But perhaps the greatest curiosity for me has been the cancelling practices of the company that cancelled the stamp below, with a neatly printed cancel that clearly shows the cancel was applied after the stamp was placed on a document.  Contrast this example with the other examples below from Elgin National Watch Company.  I would have been convinced that these cancels were applied to these stamps while they were still in unused sheets.  The example just below shows otherwise, at least for this particular stamp:

Elgin National Watch Company document fragment showing the cancel was printed once the stamp was applied to the document.

Close up showing second 8 printed on the document.

How were these cancels printed?  Elgin National Watch obviously required the systematic cancelling of a large numbers of stamps on documents, and had the capability to do so.  I do not know whether any complete documents with these stamps and cancels are known.  The fragments don't tell us enough about what type of documents these are.  If someone has a complete ENW document with and 1898 series stamps and cancel, please let us know at 1898revenues@gmail.com.  And if any experts in printing out there know how these cancels might have been applied we would also appreciate an email sent to the same address.

E. N. W. Co.

NOV. 10, 1898

ELGIN, ILL.

Printed cancel, sans-serif font

same date and cancel as on the document fragment above

E. N. W. Co.

JULY 11 1898

ELGIN, ILL.

Printed cancel, sans-serif font

Scan courtesy of Frank Sente

Bob Hohertz sends this scan to complement Frank's piece above.  This item shows the J of July printed on the document.

E.  N.  W.  Co.

ELGIN,  ILL.

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Oct.  25th,  1900.

Printed cancel, serif font, HH stamp

A future, revised version of the Fullerton catalog should consider the addition of all documentary printed cancels, and should probably include the ENW cancels.  However, it would be important to understand just how these cancels were printed.

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Elgin National Watch Company's Father Time logo

Commonly known as the Elgin Watch company, the ENW Co.was founded in 1864. Former associates of the Waltham Watch Company and Chicago watchmaker J.C. Adams had discussed forming the first large watch company in the Midwest, and after a trip to Waltham, Massachusetts, Adams approached former Mayor of Chicago Benjamin Wright Raymond as an investor. Adams and Raymond convinced many others to invest.

The growing young city of Elgin, Illinois, some 30 miles to the northwest, was chosen as factory site. The factory was completed in 1866.  Elgin National Watch stopped producing watches nearly 50 years ago.  The rights to the name "Elgin" were sold to a company called MZ Berger Inc, that specializes in manufacturing its watches in China and distributing them outside the traditional watch dealerships. Elgin-branded watches produced after 1964 have no other connection to Elgin or the Elgin Watch Company.

Elgin National Watch supplied time pieces to the US military and advertised that fact.

Documentary Printed Cancels: The Girard Trust Company

Today's featured document is contributed by Frank Sente.  The document includes a seldom seen printed cancel by The Girard Trust Company, . 

G.T. CO.

APRIL 1. 1902

This stamp comes from a share certificate for the Choctaw, Oklahoma, and Gulf Railroad Car Trust company.  The full document scan is shown below.

I am seeking other values of the battleship series with a GT Co printed cancel.  Has anybody seen these?  This cancel was not documented by Richard Fullerton in his guide to documentary printed cancels from 1952.

Stephen Girard

1750 - 1831

The Girard Trust Company was started by and named for Stephen Girard.

The charter of Alexander Hamilton's First Bank of the United States expired in 1811.  The bank was located in Philadelphia, the home of Stephen Girard, who was the richest man in the United States at the time.  Girard bought up the stock and assets of the bank with the charter expiration and created his own bank, which eventually came to be known the Girard Trust Company.  Girard's bank was the main source of financing for the US government for the War of 1812 - Girard personally underwrote 95% of the government's war loans.  The Girard Trust Company merged with Mellon Bank in 1983. 

My mother's family has roots in Girard, Richland Parish, Louisiana, near the town of Rayville.  The family home in Girard was located on a piece of a Stephen Girard plantation, and the family still has some of the land from the plantation today.  Girard never travelled to Louisiana but worked through a local agent, Judge Bry, to purchase land and establish his plantation.

inset from the full document of the stamp and signature

Share document for the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad Cart Trust

From The New York Times, April 15, 1902:

CHOCTAW AND GULF SALE

Speyer & co. Deposit with Girard Trust Company Majority Stock,

  PHILADELPHIA, April 14.--Over 155,000 shares of the stock of the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad had been deposited with the Girard Trust Company in favor of the sale of the road to Speyer & Co. of New York up to the close of business today.

  The total shares of the Choctaw issued amount to 296,000.  This settles finally the question of ownership of the road, which goes to the New York banking house, and it is expected will be turned over to the Rock Island system.

  The minority holders have until May 7 to accept the offer made, which is ofr the purchase of all common stock at $80 and preferred at $60.

Cancel for March 13: Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad

Printed corporate initials, handstamped date:

C., B. & Q. R. R. Co.

MAR   13   1899

1898 CB&Q RR Route Map

The CB&Q ran from Chicago out to the American heartland, and remained one of America's greatest railroads well into the 20th century before a series of mergers led to today's status as a named partner in one of America's largest railroads, the BNSF (the B came from Burlington).  The BNSF is now the property of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway.

Early in the life of this blog I broke down the components of the current BNSF using 1898s cancelled by BNSF antecedent companies.  I will do a quick review here of some of the historical component parts of Mr. Buffet's company:

B. & M. R. R. R.

JAN 14 1899

IN  NEB.

The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska was merged to and became an important component of the CB&Q in the early 20th century.

G. N. R. R.   W. F. S.

APR

10

1900

The Great Northern Railroad was "Empire Builder" James J. Hill's great creation.  The GNRR ran from Minneapolis St. Paul out to the Pacific and it mainline also ran into Chicago.  The GNRR would eventually take over its competitor and ever financially troubled Northern Pacific.  The merger of the pair with the CB&Q would create the railroad the Burlington Northern.  Much later the BN would combine with the railroad commonly known as the Santa Fe to create the BNSF.

The A. T. & S. F. Ry. Co.

SEP   12

      1900

The Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe is an American railroad of legend.  Its merger with the Burlington Northern would complete the creation of the current BNSF with all of its major components in place.

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On November 3, 2009, Berkshire Hathaway announced that it would acquire the remaining 77.4% of BNSF that it didn't already own for $100 per share in cash and stock  The total deal was valued at $44 billion.  On February 12, 2010, shareholders of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation voted in favor of the acquisition.

Cancel for July 1: Part Roulette First Day of Use

July 1, 1898 First Day of Tax Period Printed Bullseye Cancels by Smith, Kline and French pharmaceutical company. The pair above is a part roulette pair and has no rouletting between the stamps. There is a bit of a scuff on the left stamp.

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Smith Kline and French experienced numerous name and corporate changes, becoming SmithKline Beckman in 1982 and then SmithKline Beecham after mergers, the latter in 1989. In 2000, SmithKline Beecham merged with Glaxo Wellcome to become Glaxo Smith Kline, a UK-based company and one of the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world today.

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Listing and Value: In the Scott Catalogue the 5/8 cent proprietary stamp is listed under Scott #RB23. The item listed as "horizontal pair imperf vertically" (actually part roulette) is numbered RB23b. There is a value given in the 2009 US Specialized Catalogue for this item in unused condition: $350. That value is italicized, meaning the item is difficult to value accurately. In the case of this pair there just is not much market activity. However, even the italicized value is for the unused pair, not a used or cancelled pair. For that item there is only a blank, and not even a dash. The dash normally indicates the known existence of an item but no value can be placed on the item. "Christopher West" in his series in Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News published nearly 90 years ago did not indicate he knew of the existence of the 5/8 cent proprietary without vertical rouletting, either used or unused. This is a very interest pair given the printed cancel, its date, and the nature of the part rouletting. This pair was a part of Henry Tolman's collection.

Cancel for July 1: 111 Year Anniversary of the First Day of Use of the 1898 Series

The first day of use of the 1898 series of revenue stamps was July 1, 1898, 111 years ago today. After the Battleship "Maine" was destroyed by an explosion in a Cuban harbor on February 15, 1898, President McKinley delcared war on Spain on April 25 and subsequently approved the War Revenue Law of 1898 on June 13. The Act of Congress would become effective on July 1, 1898. The handstamped 2 cent documentary immediately below was cancelled by the Michigan Central Railroad and was certainly used to pay the new tax on July 1 1898. The printed cancels on the proprietary stamps that follow were made in preparation for the first day of use, with use on that day possible but not a certainty.

Many companies understood that the law required only that the stamps be cancelled with company identification and a year date, so many proprietary printed cancels do not include the month and day, precluding a July 1, 1898 cancel for many companies.

Wayne Youngblood, Secretary of the American Philatelic Society, wrote a feature piece in the June 2009 American Philatelist on First Day Bullseye cancels. In his article he highlights first day "bullseyes" on battleship revenue stamps and calls them some of the earliest examples of such cancels, in which the cancel includes a clean and all inclusive strike of the date and cancel location or cancellor of the stamp. Two images of battleships cancelled this way include the two cent battleship and a one and one quarter cent proprietary with a Dr. D. Jayne and Son cancel. There are examples of first day bullseyes from these companies in this post.

Below are 14 examples of first day battleship bullseyes, proprietary and documentary.



Michigan Central Railroad handstamp cancel. The Michigan Central was controlled by Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Antikamnia pharmaceutical company handstamp cancel. Antikamnia is more famous for its use of printed cancels. Above is an example of a first day, July 1 handstamp. Antikamnia issued, along with several other St. Louis pharmaceutical companies, provisional, self printed stamps for use early in the tax period before they could acquire adequate quantities of the battleship stamps. This handstamp was used to stamp some of the provisional stamps in addition to the proprietary battleship stamps. It is likely that this stamp was used after July 1.

T.B. Dunn Company, the maker of Sen-Sen Gum, one of the most popular chewing gum products of the time. Thomas B. Dunn the businessman would become a 5 term Republican Congressman from New York, beginning in 1913.

The Centaur Company and Charles Fletcher's signature. My mother gave me some noxious concoction called Fletcher's Castoria when I was a small child in the 1960s. This is one of the fancier printed cancels on the proprietary revenues.

K&M Co stands for Keasby and Mattison Company, which produced patent medicines. However, by the time of the cancellation of this stamp, the company was heavily into the production of asbestos and asbestos products. The firm started out as a pharmaceutical firm but became involved in asbestos production after Dr. Richard Mattison discovered that milk of magnesia would cling to hot pipes. He combined asbestos with the stomach settler and guided the Ambler, Pennsylvania based business into the production of asbestos products. The name Keasby and Mattison is associated with extensive asbestos liability legal actions.

Printed cancel for the company McKesson and Robbins, which would become embroiled in one of the worst corporate scandals in US history in 1938 after the company was taken over by a professional bootlegger under an assumed name. These days though arguably from Enron to Madoff our time has bested the M&R scandal. McKesson is today one of the largest health care companies in the world.

Dr. D. Jayne and Son printed cancel. Dr. Jayne and his sons made a variety of noxious patent medicines.

McKesson and Robbins cancel.

Dr. D. Jayne and Sons block of nine. The six stamps on the right are of a single font different from the three stamps on the left.

McKesson and Robbins cancel.

Dr. D. Jayne and Sons cancels of two different fonts.

Sen-Sen gum printed cancel from July 1 1898. TB Dunn initials at the bottom. Many of the 2 and 4 cent proprietaries were used to pay the tax on chewing gum.

D. Jayne and son pair with two type of fonts.

McKesson and Robbins.

American Express Printed Cancels: Pair with Subtypes F and E

American Express printed cancel pair with cancel subtype F on top and subtype E on bottom.

American Express Printed Cancels: Subtype H

American Express 1901 printed cancel subtype H, where the first 1 of 1901 is under the left leg of the X in AM. EX. CO.

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype G

American Express 1901 printed cancels, subtype G, where the two stamps below have the first 1 of the 1901 year date directly under the EX portion of the cancel. The first stamp below is "normal" with rectangular equal size periods and normally formed letters and numbers.

Subtype G where the first 1 in 1901 is heavy.

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype F

American Express printed cancel subtype F, with 1900 year date. Each of the seven stamps below has the 1 of 1900 directly underneath the EX. of the AM. EX. CO. portion of the cancel. The stamp immediately below is the "normal" variety of subtype F, with 3 roughly equal size and rectangular periods.

Subtype F with rounded period after "AM".

Subtype F with large period after "AM".

Subtype F with small period after "EX".

Subtype F with square period after "CO".

Subtype F with large rounded period after "CO". General overinking of cancel.

Subype F with large rounded period after "AM" and skeleton period after "CO".

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype E

American Express printed cancels subtype E, 1900 year date. Each of the three stamps below has the 1 of the 1900 under the left leg of the X in EX. The following stamp is the "normal" variety of subtype E, with three rectangular equal size periods and normally formed letters.

Subtype E, large periods under AM. and CO. Cancel is overinked.

Large rounded period after CO.

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype D

American Express 1900 printed cancels (1900 and 1901 sans serif only) subtype D, where each of the three stamps below has the 1 of the 1900 under the E in the AM. EX. CO. portion of the cancel. The first stamp below is the "normal" variety of subtype D, with 3 rectangular equal size periods.

Subtype D, large periods after AM and CO. Overinked cancel.

Subtype D, large period after CO. Overall cancel is overinked.

American Express Printed Cancels: Varieties of Subtype C

American Express 189x sans serif printed cancels subtype C, where each of the seven stamps below has the 1 of the 189x year date under the right leg of the X in the AM. EX. CO. portion of the cancel. The following stamp is the "normal" variety of subtype C, with three rectangular equal size periods and normally formed letters.

Reference blog entry from June 14 in which the general scheme used to classify the the different types of American Express printed cancels is shown.

Above stamp: "normal" rouletted variety.

"normal" subtype C hyphen hole stamp.

Subtype C with 3 large periods.

Subtype C with large period after "CO".

Subtype C with square period after "EX".

Subtype C with shortened left leg of X.

Subtype C with shortened right leg of X.