1/8 Cent Proprietary with 50 Cent Beer Stamp Impressions

While there was an 1898 series of beer stamps, the stamps and the taxes they paid were not for the purpose of supporting the war effort, as they accounted to more general revenues for the US Treasury.  However, the Bureau of Engraving and printing was producing both the ongoing series of beer stamps while printing the battleship and other associated war stamps.  In their hurry to produce the new stamps and the ongoing series, they occasionally made a mistake.  This post presents an interesting example of one of those errors.

Frank Sente has supplied a block of the 1/8 cent proprietary that has non-inked vignettes of the REA60 beer stamp visible in the margin.  As a reminder, REA60 looks like this, with an image of Thomas Hart Benson in the center:

Below is a bottom right margin imprint and plate number 9437 block of twenty of RB20 wherein you can faintly see two vignette impressions of the REA60 federal beer stamp in the margin.

A cropped image from the block showing the BEP margin imprint and the lower of the two REA vignette image:

Frank ran the cropped image through a program called RetroReveal to "strenghten" the image of the REA60 vignette.    The vignette is inverted.  At the top you can read ..."rter Barr".. of Quarter Barrel above the recognizable image of Thomas Hart Benson's head with "Fifty Cents" below that. 

Thanks to Frank for sharing this.  If there is this one, there must be others.  Examine your battleships closely!

Margin Curiosities: What is a number like you doing on a plate like this?

Courtesy of Bob Mustacich, via the prompting of Dave Thompson, is presented to you a series of margin curiosities collected and hand annotated by Anthony Giacomelli.  The battleship series is known for denomination/series margin inscriptions, eg the 1/8 CP, 3/8 CP and similar markings, that enabled the printers to better identify the values they were working with, since battleship series stamps were all of similar design and size.

The markings in questions are numbers, mostly in reverse, independent of the values of the stamps on the plates. What appear to be fours are not reversed.  Giacomelli located numbers 1-4 on various values.  

I've looked over some of my collection, and over items posted to this site, and have found markings/numbers similar to those below.  In Frank Sente's American Philatelist article you can find what appears to be a 4 on a 3/8c proprietary pair.

Below are four examples, with Giacomelli's notes.  I'm interested in any explanation that might exist for these markings/numbers.  If you have one, please comment below or write to 1898revenues@gmail.com.

"NUMERAL 1 REVERSED AS USUAL"

"A #2 IS ALSO FOUND ON 1c DOC. IN THE SAME GENERAL AREA"

"NO SCREW HEAD"

"LAZY #2"

"FIGURE "3" EXIST ON THE 1c DOC SHEET IN THE SAME SIZE FONT AND LOCATION"

"NUMBER UP LEFT.  WHY?"

On Beyond Holcombe: Maltine

Today's On Beyond Holcombe feature comes from a special appearance on our site by Mr. Jack Sullivan who publishes the blog Bottles, Booze, and Back Stories.  On Beyond Holcombe is a continuing series by Malcolm A. Goldstein on the users of proprietary battleship stamps.

Maltine paperweight

Prior to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 one of the decisions that companies manufacturing medicines had to face was whether they played to the public with claims to cure a wide range of ailments, or whether to be more restrained and cater to the medical fraternity. Some, to potential peril, tried to straddle the line. This was brought home to me recently with my purchase of a paperweight advertising a product called “Maltine.”

Maltine turns out to be an extract of malted barley, wheat and oats, highly fortified by alcohol. It was the brain child of John Carnrick (1837-1903), a pharmacologist who invented a whole shelf of elixirs with such imaginative names as Lacto-peptine, Peptenzyme, and Kumysgen, this last a concoction purportedly made from fermented mare’s milk. In general, these nostrums and Maltine were drinks to impart nutrition, improve digestion, and remedy undefined stomach ailments.

MALTINE

1898

MALTINE

1899

MALTINE

1900

MALTINE

1901

First merchandised through Carnrick’s drug manufacturing firm, Reed and Carnrick, the product subsequently was sold through a spin-off, the Maltine Manufacturing Company of Brooklyn, New York. Maltine was heavily promoted to doctors through ads in medical journals, trade cards depicting leading doctors and surgeons, and a range of practical giveaway items aimed at physicians. These included a “home call book” -- remember that doctors once made house calls -- and a sign for the door when the doctor was out. All contained plugs for Maltine.

To meet stiff competition for the malt drink market, however, Maltine’s management could not resist going directly to the public. It issued trade cards that showed cherubic youngsters, sometimes hefting a Maltine bottle, thus making the case that their product was safe for children. Widely distributed owl bookmarks claimed: “Its effects in anemia, childrosis [an entirely fictitious medical condition], and other forms of blood impoverishment are almost magical.” Childrosis? Magical? Maltine seemed to be crossing the line of propriety.

This kind of advertising predictably brought howls of protests from physicians. As early as 1894 the company officials in letters to medical journals across the country vigorously insisted that Maltine was not a “patent medicine” and that their intention was to reach patients only through physicians.

On the other hand, the company could not resist mixing additional trendy ingredients with Maltine, including cod liver oil, peptones, and a triple combination of iron phosphate -- used today to poison garden slugs -- quinine, and, believe it or not, strychnine. Its best seller, however, became Maltine with Coca Wine. Ads suggested drinking a full glass of this potion during or after every meal. Children were advised to take only half a glass. In a given year, 10,000 bottles of Maltine with Coca Wine were sold.

Meanwhile, authorities were increasingly concerned about the growing number of cocaine addicts in the country. The substance derived from the coca plant was becoming so popular that it had become a public health problem. Maltine’s management was faced with a dilemma: Dump Maltine with Coca Wine and lose thousands of dollars in sales, or keep selling it and risk angering the medical fraternity.

In 1907 a company lawyer provided the answer in a statement to the Federal Bureau of Chemistry, the forerunner of the FDA: “Simply because all these cocaine preparations are getting into such bad odor, the Maltine Company does not want anything to do with one. We thought it advisable to be on the safe side and give up the the preparation altogether rather than get mixed up in something unpleasant.” Ironically, chemists had been able to find only minute traces of cocaine in Maltine with Coca Wine -- not believed enough to lead to addiction.

Nonetheless, It was a wise decision. By 1914 Congress had rendered it illegal nationwide to put cocaine in consumer products. The Maltine Company re-established its reputation for being an ethical drug company. It subsequently was bought by Chilcott Laboratories, which in turn was acquired by Warmer Lambert, itself swallowed up by Pfizer, Inc., in 2000. Maltine disappeared with Prohibition.
 

MALTINE

1898

two "e"s

MALTINE

1898

MALTINE

1898

MALTINE

1898

block of 4, red cancel

imroulette or imperf horizontally

MALTINE

no date

pair, purple cancel

Maltine Co.

1898

pair, imperf horizontally

MALTINE

1898

MALTINE

1899

MALTINE

no date

April Fool

RB20 with GUAM overprint

As some of you might have read, on April Fools Day I posted this stamp with a claim that it was issued for taxes on betel nuts on the island of Guam.  As many expected, the story is not true!

Two years ago I purchased a lot of battleship stamps with handstamp cancels and included in the bunch was this odd copy of RB20.  I put it aside as a poorly made fraud but curiosity got the better of me eventually and I decided to check out the Scott Catalogue just to see if the USG made anything that might have looked like this stamp.  As there is nothing listed, I continue to figure the stamp is nothing more than a curiosity made by a stamp collector.

But with last year's April 1 post on Teddy Roosevelt's indian canoe stamp such a hit for this site, I thought the Guam stamp could be used for an equally plausible yet absurd story.  I am curious to know whether there might be more stamps like this out there.  Do you have one, and maybe on a denomination other than an RB20?  If so, please write to 1898revenues@gmail.com.

Ebay: Proprietary Plate Strips

There is a lot of low denonmination 10-stamp wide plate strips currently for sale on Ebay through buy-it-now.  From the pictures and description they appear to be all 1/8c RB20s and 5/8c Rb23s.  The sale price is $595, way over what I would consider reasonable, but who knows, maybe there is a buyer out there.

See the Ebay lot by clicking here.

In the desciption the dealer writes in screaming capitals that some of the strips have inverted watermarks.  David Thompson sent this comment by email about the dealer's watermark comments: 

"...this dealer is making a big deal about the INVERTED WATERMARK!  He calls this an error, this is no error, just normal production run handling, all stamps that have watermarks can have an inverted watermark, along with all different type of orientations, what seems to be the hardest to find is a normal watermark.  Of course when you watermark a stamp you start off looking the back of the stamp, so you're already initially confused about the orientation, some people think a normal watermark should show."

Mystery Margin Number

Dave Thompson sent in this scan of an RB20 pair with a three digit number stamped in the margin.  Just what is this number?  Was this a control number placed in the margin by the user?  I assume that the BEP never used numbers of this type. 

Can any of our wiser readers posit an explanation for the 228?

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. 

Tracking 1898 Values: The 1/8 Cent Proprietary

Three days ago on January 5 in a post regarding 1/8 cent proprietary prices I mentioned that there were cancellations on these stamps that in certain cases sold at substantial premiums over Scott Catalog prices for "regular" used or unused copies of this stamp.  This post will highlight a couple (and small fraction) of those premium cancels.

We'll start with the most expensive cancel currently selling in Eric Jackson's Ebay store, a "BIG 4" cancel.

BIG

4

The stamp above is in my collection.  In Eric Jackson's Ebay store he currently lists an extra fine copy of this stamp, unlike the gouged copy above, for sale.  His price is $100.  This cancel is unlike most proprietary cancels.  The printed cancellation was applied by an printing company that printed four stamp collecting journals and magazines, and was applied in 1899 as an advertising stunt.  Despite its philatelic origins the cancel is scarce today.  The PAB used either two or three types of cancels on this stamp and only cancelled 1/8 cent proprietary stamps.

Eric Jackson's 1/8 cent proprietary printed cancels for sale can be found here: EJ 1/8 Cent printed cancels.  In the coming year I will file a more detailed post regarding the BIG 4 cancels.  Below is a stamp cancelled by a company for use on its proprietary products:

L  &  M  CO.

Jul.  9  1898

The above stamp was cancelled by Langley and Michaels, a firm based in San Francisco.  At the link to Eric Jackson's store above you can also find a copy of a stamp with this cancel for sale for $12.50.  Langley & Michaels also cancelled other values in the proprietary battleship series.

The above two stamps are a small sample of the many varieties of printed cancels on these stamps.  Handstamp cancels for the certain companies also sell for a premium, and have recently been available for sale by Robert Mustacich on Ebay.  Mustacich is a co-author of the Battleship Desk Reference, and has been selling parts of his collection.

While most used battleship stamps are relatively common and cheap, some are scarce and command higher prices than others.  Above are just two examples.  In the coming year I will be highlighting many relatively scarce proprietary stamps with printed and handstamp cancels.  Stay tuned.

Tracking 1898 Values: The 1/8 Cent Proprietary Battleship

Quite often I get hits on this blog from people looking for information about an old battleship revenue stamp.  One of the most common searches is for price information on the 1/8 cent battleship revenue.  While its quirky face value of 1/8 cent leads many to think the stamp must be rare and valuable, huge numbers were printed and used.  As a consequence single used copies of this stamp are common and cheap.  Even unused singles are similarly inexpensive.

However, there are certain presentations of this stamp that do have some value to collectors; even some cancelled versions of this stamp can sell for more than $10.  But you have to know what to look for.   I will present examples of some of these more valuable cancelled or used stamps in a post in the next few days, but first a review of the basics. 

The 1/8 cent proprietary was used to pay taxes on so-called "proprietary articles."  At the time these stamps were printed there were many items of alleged medicinal value that were sold under branded, or proprietary, names.  Any article 5 cents or less was taxed at a rate of 1/8 cent, and there were many products sold at 5 cents or less.  Proprietary products generally consisted of medicines of some kind, with names like Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup.  The bottle of syrup or the box that surrounded the product would have the stamp attached, and the stamp would be cancelled with the name or initials of the company or product and the date of the cancel.  Certain cancels are valued by collectors, and command a premium over others. 

For now, the basic stamp and some explanation of its value in unused and more common used conditions:

Unused 1/8 Cent Proprietary Stamp

Roulette "perforations"

2010 Scott Catalog price:  25 cents

Regular used versions of the stamp above and immediately below are priced at 25 cents by Scott.  When Scott prices a stamp at 25 cents it essentially has no value; the price is set at 25 cents so that a dealer has an incentive to stock and sell the stamp. 

Unused 1/8 Cent Proprietary Stamp

Hyphe hole perforations

2010 Scott Catalog price: 30 cents

Note the dramatic difference in value between the following two 1/8 cent stamp multiples.  The block of 4 below is worth little, and priced only at 75 cents by Scott.  But the plate number block of 6 below is another matter, and is priced at more than $100.00.  Collectors today collect this type of plate number material while at the time these stamps were issued plate blocks were rarely preserved.  So while the 1/8 cent battleship revenue is generally a cheap stamp, the 1/8 cent plate block is scarce and thus relatively expensive.

Unuese 1/8 Cent Block of Four

Hyphen hole perforations

2010 Scott Catalog price: 75 cents

Unused 1/8 Cent Plate Block of 6

Hyphen hole perforations

2010 Scott Catalog price:  $140.00

In a post in the next couple of days I will highlight copies of this stamp in used condtion that due to their special cancels command a premium price from collectors.

Cancel for December 16: Joseph S. Angeny Jr. Apothecary

JOS. S. ANGENY JR. APOTHECARY

DEC 16

1899

AMBLER, PA

***

In an 1896 edition of the newspaper the Ambler Gazette there are several mentions of the J.S. Angeny pharmacy selling various patent medicines of the era including Chamberlain's cough medicine and H. E. Bucklin's New Life Pills, companies that used large quantities of battleship proprietaries and used printed cancellations.

H.  E.  B.  & CO.

JULY   1   1898

H. E. Bucklin printed cancel on eighth cent proprietary.  Cancel of July 1, 1898 marks the first day the tax was in effect. 

Herbert Bucklin’s Chicago-based company produced four patent medicines including:

1. Dr. King's New Discovery for Consumption, Coughs and Colds
2. Bucklin's Arnica Salve
3. Electric Bitters
4. Dr. King's New Life Pills.

And the company spent widely in the United States to advertise these products, which might explain the mention in Joseph Angeny's advertising in the Ambler Gazette.  Much more on Bucklin and his products will come later when company's printed cancels are examined in greater detail on this site.

Tracking 1898 Values: Battleship Proprietary Plate Blocks

My copy of the 2010 Scott US Specialized Catalog arrived early in November.  My usual practice on receiving the catalog each year is to turn to the revenue section to see whether Scott Publishing has made any radical changes in prices, especially for the 1898s.  From 09 to 10 there were no changes of price among the battleships - not for singles, blocks of four, or part-roulettes, so far as I can tell.  But there was a major addition to the battleship listings in 2010.  Scott has chosen to list plate block prices for the battleships.

In the field of revenue collecting plate blocks have not been regularly collected.  There have been exceptions.  The first postage stamps to be overprinted for revenue use, the first 1898s from the first Bureau postage series, have been regularly collected in plate strip and plate block form. The blocks and strips are listed in Scott and have been for years.  This is probably because postage stamps were collected this way, and these stamps were, at one point, postage stamps.  But there have been no plate listings for the first, second, and third revenue series.  And for the most part there have been no subsequent plate listings.  But the battleships represent a change. 

I don't know why this change was made.  Listed advisors at the front of the catalog include the dealers Eric Jackson who maintains a substantial quantity of battleship plate blocks for sale on his website.  In the last few years Steve Wittig, a specialist in revenue and back-of-book plate material, has sold pieces of his collection.  And many battleship plate blocks were made available in the Tolman sale from about two and half years ago.  So there is some market activity, perhaps enough to make the case to list the battleship plate blocks. 

Whatever the case, we now have them in the catalog, and can track Scott's estimate of their value year over year.  Below I will look at the 2010 prices for some of the proprietary plate blocks in my collection, comparing Scott valuations with prices of blocks listed on Eric Jackson's website and a list of plate blocks and plate material for sale in 2008 by Steve Wittig.

RB20 One-Eighth Cent Yelllow Green Roulette Top Plate Block of Six

2010 Scott Value:  $140.00

2009 EricJackson.com: None listed

2008 Wittig: $100.00

RB20p One-Eighth Cent Yelllow Green Roulette Left Imprint Plate Block of Six

2010 Scott Value: $140.00

2009 EricJackson.com: $75.00

2008 Wittig: $100.00

RB21 One Quarter Center Brown Roulette Top Plate Block of Six

2010 Scott Value:  $110.00

2009 EricJackson.com:  $125.00

2008 Wittig:  $125.00

RB21p One Quarter Center Brown Hyphen-hole Left Imprint Plate Block of Six

2010 Scott Value: $125.00

2090 EricJackson.com: $75.00
2008 Wittig:  $125.00

RB22p Three-eigths Cent Deep Orange Hyphen-hole Left Imprint Plate Block of Six

2010 Scott Value: $200.00

2009 EricJackson.com: $125.00
2008 Wittig:  $125.00

RB23p Five-eigths Cent Deep Ultra Right Imprint Plate Block of Six

2010 Scott Value:  $100.00

2009 Eric Jackson.com:  $100.00
2008 Wittig:  $150.00

RB24p One Cent Dark Green Right Imprint Plate Block of Six

Scott 2010 Value:  $550.00

2009 EricJackson.com:  $900.00

2008 Wittig:  $650.00

I debated whether to post this block.  It looks like its been run over by a lawn mower.

RB25p One and One-quarter Cent Violet Left Imprint Plate Block of Six
2010 Scott Value:  $250.00
2009 EricJackson.com:  $200.00
2008 Wittig:  $200.00

RB27p 2 Cent Violet Brown Right Imprint Plate Block of Six

2010 Scott Value:  Dash -- no price

2009 EricJackson.com: $450.00

2008 Wittig:  $375.00

For several values of the proprietary series, both roulette and hyphen hole, only a dash is present.  The Scott value for the roulette RB27 is $475, nearly the same as Eric Jackson's hyphen-hole price.  RB29, RB30 and RB31 have dashes for both the roulette aand hyphen-hole plate blocks.  About a month ago Steve Wittig had an RB29 plate block for sale on eBay.  I posted on this auction item earlier in the fall.

RB28p 2 1/2 Cent Lake Left Imprint Plate of Six

2010 Scott Value: $375.00

2009 EricJackson.com:  $350.00

2008 Wittig:  $250.00

RB30p Four Cent Purple Left Imprint Plate Block of Six

Scott 2010 Value:  Dash - no value

2009 EricJackson.com:  none listed

2008 Wittig: $1,500.00

RB31p 5 Cent Brown Orange Right Imprint Plate Block of Six

2010 Scott Value:  Dash -- No price

2009 EricJackson.com 2009: $1500.00

2008 Wittig: $1750.00

I acquired this block along with a matching right side block from a Robert Siegel auction in 2007.  It sold for $375, substantially less than Jackson's website sale price.  The matching right-side block went for $350 at auction.

Its encouraging to see new Scott listings for items that I collect.  Unlike collectors of US postage stamps, the revenue field is loaded with possibilities for new listings.  The battleships are a winner in 2010.  It will be interesting to see whether these new listings creates a bit more life in this market for these items.

Thanks to Steve Wittig for sending his price list back in 2008.