Cancel for January 21: AEtna Life Insurance Company

AETNA LIFE INS. CO.

JAN

21

1899

Aetna is one of America's largest health insurers. 

Cancel for January 19: Austin National Bank

AUSTIN NAT'L BANK,

JAN

19

1899

AUSTIN, MINN.

What's up with this stamp?  Worn out plate?  Pale ink?  Stamp left in the sun or under flourescent light for too long?  What are the explanations for why a stamp might look like this?

In 1887 the Austin State Bank was incorporated by G. Schleuder, F.I. Crane, C.H. Davidson, and R.E. Shepard. In 1889 the Austin National Bank was organized and took over the accounts of the State Bank. Mr. Schleuder was the president of this bank from 1895 to 1898.

Cancel for January 19: Little Rock and Memphis Railroad

L. R. & M. R. R.

JAN  19  1899

In September 1898, the Choctaw, Oklahoma &amp Gulf Railroad (see a certificate of this railroad in this post from July 2010); leased and later purchased the Little Rock & Memphis Railroad. 

The LR&MRR, a held the distinction of operating over the first railroad trackage in Arkansas. The LR&M had been in and out of receivership since the late 1870s, a situation caused by Jay Gould's diversion of through traffic to his own lines. The CO&G, owned by Philadelphia investors (The Girard Trust Company of Philadelphia issued the above mentioned cert) and coal mine financiers, sought entry into Memphis to expand their market for coal produced by company mines in Indian Territory (eastern Oklahoma).

The St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, a Gould railroad, bitterly opposed the CO&G entry into Little Rock because it threatened Gould's near monopoly in the area. One of the Gould tactics to discourage CO&G expansion was a refusal to allow CO&G operation over either of the existing Arkansas river rail crossings (Baring Cross and Junction bridges) at Little Rock.

Moxie Nerve Food

MOXIE

SEP

24

1898

NEW YORK

Clear and nearly complete Moxie bottle-shaped handstamped cancel.  This stamp just arrived in the mail and I like it so much I wanted to post it right away.  If this stamp was attached to a single bottle of the soda, the drink was fairly expensive stuff, as 5/8c paid the tax for a product priced between 15 and 25 cents. 

Bob Mustacich displays a 5/8c stamp with this cancel on his website.

I've borrowed copy on the history of this soda from the Marietta, Ohio, Soda Museum.

The history of Moxie from the Marietta Soda Museum:

The word "Moxie" means courage, guts, self-sufficiency, chutzpah, confidence, fighting spirit, and nerve -- it also took a lot of moxie to swallow more than a mouthful of the stuff. At best, the flavor has been described as unforgettable. Early advertising campaigns informed potential patrons that they would have to "Learn to Drink Moxie." The thought of people drinking this stuff out of pleasure is incomprehensible, yet Moxie has a strong following who will drink no other soda. In fact, as late as the 1920s Moxie was our nations most popular national brand.

 Augustin Thompson was born on November 25, 1835 in Union, Maine. He grew up on the family farm, and when the Civil War erupted, he enlisted in the Union Army with some buddies. He must have been a pretty bad dude, because he went from private to Lieut. Colonel by the end of the war. After the war he enrolled in medical school and graduated from Hahneman Hospital in Philadelphia.

Once he graduated he setup practice in Lowell, MA and was soon developing and offering patent medicines to supplement his medical practices income. Patent medicines were extremely popular at the time, and had made millionaires of several entrepreneurs (and at that time a million dollars really meant something). In fact, Lowell, MA was already home to three very popular patent medicines, and in 1876 Lowell became home to a fourth -- Moxie. This gentian root flavored extract was a nostrum, which meant that it was stronger than a tonic, and was dispensed a spoonful at a time. However, a few years later Dr Thompson had noticed the immense popularity of the soft drink trade, and he decided to make a little modification to his medicine. So, in 1884, Moxie was being sold in a carbonated form and was called "Beverage Moxie Nerve Food." This new version was a HUGE success.

Beverage - Moxie Nerve Food

Contains not a drop of Medicine, Poison, Stimulant, or Alcohol. But it is a simple sugarcane-like plant grown near the equator and farther south, was lately accidentally discovered by Lieut. Moxie and has proved itself to be the only harmless nerve food known that can recover brain and nervous exhaustion; loss of manhood, imbecility, and helplessness.

It has recovered paralysis, softening of the brain, locomotor ataxia, and insanity when caused by nervous exhaustion. It gives a durable solid strength, makes you eat voraciously; takes away the tired, sleepy, listless feeling like magic, removes fatigue from mental and physical overwork at once, will not interfere with action of vegetable medicines.

An old label found on one of those original "Beverage Moxie Nerve Food" bottles even provides us with some clues to the history and ingredients to the original Moxie (eventually "Beverage Moxie Nerve Food" would change its name to simply "Moxie").

The name Moxie could have came from an old army buddy of Mr. Thompson's like the label stated. However, a thorough searching of Civil War records indicate there never was a Lieut. Moxie. Most likely the name came from Mr. Thompson's boyhood home. Mr. Thompson grew up in the state of Maine where there is a Moxie Falls, a Moxie Cave, and a Moxie Pond. Maine also had moxie berries and moxie plums. The word Moxie is probably Indian in origin, and nostrums were frequently marketed as if they had come from secret Indian recipes. With all of this being said, the chances that there was ever a Lieut. Moxie are pretty slim, and if Mr. Thompson wasn't completely truthful about the origins of Moxie then can we believe what he says about the ingredients Moxie contained?

Moxie was very bitter and medicinal tasting, and gentian extract is generally given credit as being the primary ingredient. However, Dr. Dale Covey's book "The secrets of the Specialists" published in 1903 claimed Moxie was a decoction of oats flavored with sassafras and wintergreen. Lending credence to this theory is an old label of Moxie that depicts a woman carrying what appears to be oats. A later label lists the ingredients as water, sugar, cinchona (a bitter bark from South America), alkaloids, caramel, and flavoring. In any event, the formula to Moxie would be revised over the years, but it always (with one exception) retained a bitter or medicinal flavor, and up until the 1960s sassafras was a main ingredient. When the use of sassafras was outlawed by the FDA in the 1960's the formula had to be revised. Over the years Moxie had also declined greatly in popularity, and in 1968 the Moxie company made their famous tonic sweeter to compete with other soft drinks. BIG MISTAKE! They not only didn't win over any new patrons, but also seriously enraged the Moxie faithful and lost 50% of their loyal customers almost overnight. In 1980, Moxie would change their formula back, and today Moxie is flavored with primarily gentian root and wintergreen, and although it still lacks sassafras it taste pretty similar to the way it did before the FDA outlawed sassafras.

One last note on the original ingredients that composed Moxie. According to "Beverages" written by Charles Sulz in 1888, the popular "Nerve Foods" that are being sold use cocaine as their primary ingredient. (Authors note: I have dozens of old soda fountain formulary guides and Mr. Sulz is easily the best and most thorough book I have read at over 800 pages -- one of my favorite books). Just keep in mind that in the 1870s when Moxie was invented that cocaine was considered beneficial, and not harmful in the least (the original Coca-Cola formula also contained cocaine). Clearly opinions changed, and by 1906 the Food and Drug Act outlawed the use of cocaine and Moxie had certainly removed the cocaine from their formula by this time. However, the early use of cocaine in the drink does make since -- it fits in with the plant grown around the equator, it was reputed to address the same problems that the early Moxie cured (nervous exhaustion, loss of manhood, etc.), and it explains why people would buy a second bottle of this bitter tasting concoction.

Another reason that Moxie was so popular was because of its prodigious advertising, and Frank Archer was the man responsible for Moxie's advertising campaigns. A student of advertising would do well to study a case history of Moxie. When it was being advertised it grew to become the world's most popular soft drink, but when advertising dollars were reduced it disappeared into near extinction. As was said earlier, Frank Archer spearheaded Moxie's advertising campaign and that handsome man pointing at you and telling you to drink Moxie is probably Frank Archer. No one knows for sure, but there is some strong evidence supporting this theory. This poster, and slight variations on the same theme, was one of Moxie's most successful campaigns. Just like the old "Uncle Sam Needs You!" poster, the eyes follow you wherever you go (try it -- lean you're head to one side of the screen -- spooky huh?). And check out that smile -- Mona Lisa might want it back. Do you want to drink some Moxie now?

Up until 1920 Moxie was outselling Coca-Cola, but Moxie made the same decision that a lot of soft drink producers made when sugar prices skyrocketed. They bought large quantities to protect themselves from future price increases. Unfortunately, prices collapsed and they were forced to sell their product at a loss. This also meant that they didn't have the money for advertising so they cut back dramatically. They should have borrowed the money, because without advertising sales also declined dramatically and they never recovered. You would have thought they learned their lesson, but a couple years later, when hit by the Great Depression, they cut back on advertising again.


A few years after the great depression Moxie was split into two companies with F.E. Thompson (the inventors son) as president of The Moxie Company, and with the Frank Archer serving as Vice President. The Moxie Company retained the bottling rights to New England. The other half of the company was Moxie Company of America with Frank Archer serving as president and this organization he had the right to distribute Moxie over the entire nation with the exception of New England. Mr. Archer, the great advertiser, was never able to get the rest of the nation to drink Moxie in great numbers. However, Moxie wasn't completely dead, because in 1967 they bought the National Nugrape Company and the two companies formed the Moxie-Monarch-Nugrape Company of Doraville, GA in 1968. It was shortly thereafter the taste of Moxie was changed to be sweeter and more contemporary, which went over like a lead balloon. At the time the new company was formed, Moxie was its best selling brand, but every year fewer and fewer bottles of Moxie were sold. Monarch went on to became a huge success, and they soon had over 1,000 bottlers with such brands as NuGrape, Grapette, Suncrest, Kist, Nesbitts, and many other brands. Moxie can only be purchased in New England, and even there it is often hard to find.

Hyphen Hole 14 on RB21

Yesterday's post of two examples of the HH14 variety is today complemented by an example on the 1/4c proprietary presently for auction on Ebay.  The item on Ebay is most remarkable in that it appears to be a complete sheet of RB21p, the 1/4c proprietary stamp.  I believe this is the same sheet that has been for auction over the past several months, initially at very high starting bids.  The price has since come down.  You can find the Ebay lot here.  Battleship sheets are rare.  Their size alone made them difficult to preserve, and this is a rare surviving example, even if it is somewhat battered.

RB21p 1/4 cent proprietary full sheet of 200

current Ebay lot

So while the sheet is remarkable just because it exists, it contains an HH14 example, or the hyphen hole perforation variety in which the perforations appear as 14 perfs per 2 centimeters rather than 7.  The cause of this variety is explained in this post.  Thanks to JW Palmer for his elegant explanation of this anomaly. 

In the Ebay listing is included this closeup scan:

The bottom rows of stamps clearly show the HH14 variety.  Below is an even closer view:

Thanks to Dave T for spotting the HH14s in the sheet!

Hyphen Hole 14 on R164 and RB24

This site first considered the hyphen hole 14 variety on September 19, 2010.  Today are two examples sent in by David Thompson, the first an R164p example and the second and RB24p example.  Is it possible to find this variety on all the slot perforated battleship stamps?

R164p with HH14 between 3rd and 4th stamps.

RB24p vertical line block of 4 with HH14 running horizontally through the block

Cancel for January 14: Hornblower & Weeks

HORNBLOWER & WEEKS

JAN  14  1902

BOSTON

Note 1902 use of rouletted stamps

The investment banking and brokerage firm Hornblower & Weeks was founded by Henry Hornblower and John W. Weeks in 1888.  By the1970s, Hornblower ranked eighth among member firms of the New York Stock Exchange in number of retail offices, with 93 retail sales offices located in the United States and Europe.  Hornblower was active in financing automobile companies in the first half of the 20th century, including Dodge Motors, General Motors, and Hudson Motor Car Company.  Through mergers and acquisitions the firm would become a part of Loeb, Rhoades, Hornblower & Company.   

1898 Battleship Proprietary Material: Harmer-Schau's January 28-30 Auction

Chris Harmer emailed to alert us to their upcoming end of January auction and several lots of 1898 proprietary material.  You can find the web page with that material here:

1898 Material, Harmer-Schau January 28-30 Auction

Highlights include several scarce plate blocks including 1c and 5c hyphen hole blocks; several collections of company printed cancels, and two rare trial color proofs.
 

Above:  RB24p plate imprint block of 8.  I put up a copy of this block about a year ago on this site, but my copy looks like it was chewed by my cat.  Nice to have a clean one to display.  The opening, or current bid, is $290.

RB31p is one of the rarest of the hyphen hole plate imprint blocks.  Last year a block of 12 sold for $1900 - that result was highligted on this site.  The current or starting bid is $850.

This is a sample page of the McKesson and Robbins collection of printed cancels being auctioned.   Four other company collections of printed cancels are also offered, including Potter Drug and Emerson Drug.

Two trial color proofs are offered in the sale, including the 1 7/8c example shown above and a 1/4c example.

Once we get the results for this sale we'll can see how the market is tracking for this kind of 1898 material. 

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. 

The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company - Part 2

I've already posted checks and merchant's drafts written by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The following examples are merchants' drafts written to collect from the Lackawanna.

The first is a draft from the Atlantic and Danville Railway Company, issued shortly before it became part of the Southern Railway. The original Atlantic and Danville was founded in 1883 and went into receivership by 1891. In 1894 a new Atlantic and Danville railway was formed as a corporate reorganization to acquire the property and rights of the failed line, and that successor company operated the railroad until it was leased to the Southern on August 31, 1899.

The Atlantic and Danville had approximately 275 miles of track, running from Norfolk to Danville, with two short spurs.

A close-up of the cancel.

The other six drafts involve rental of railroad cars. The Lackawanna was c

Publish Post

arefully managed, and did not own huge fleets of cars of its own.

The first two drafts are from the G.H. Hammond Company, which leased refrigerator cars. Sometime in the first three months of 1899 the company moved from using adhesive revenues to using imprinted ones. Both were issued to collect money from the Lackawanna, one for some charges enumerated on a sheet that was once attached, and one for car repairs.

Second, a draft from the Venice Transportation Company of Saint Louis.

The cancel refers to the company Treasurer, not the company itself.

Next, a draft for car mileage from the California Fruit Transportation Company of Chicago.

The cancel is that of the Assistant Treasurer of the CFTC.

The Freeman Brothers Refrigerator Line of Pontiac, Michigan apparently did not bother with handstamp cancels.

Neither did the Interior & Seaboard refrigerator Line.

Finally, here is a draft from the Live Poultry Transportation Company of Chicago.

Their cancel does refer to the company, but I wish the stamp had not been placed on top of most of what would have been an interesting logo.

All of these 1899 drafts were directed to F.H. Gibbons in his role as Treasurer of the Lackawanna. As noted in my first post on the Lackawanna, he was no longer serving in that role by 1901.

R163 1 Cent Documentary Bisect on Document Fragment

R163 Bisect

Sean Roberts sent this scan in yesterday of 49 1/2 cents worth of 1898 stamps used on a document fragment.  The highlight is the 1 cent bisect at the bottom.  Undoubtedly an insurance usage, I am interested if there are other known uses of 1 cent bisects on insurance documents?

Cancel for January 10: W. H. Goadby & Company

W. H. GOADBY  & CO.

JAN

10

1901

NEW YORK

Located at 8 Wall Street in New York, Goadby & Co., was a securities firm. 

From a rather odd propaganda-based website.:

"Although the firm of Goadby & Co. had not been established or at any rate did not bear that name until April, 1876, Mr. Goadby had been a member of the Stock Exchange for several years previously. His membership dates from Dec. 31, 1870.... The partners who now make up the firm are Courtlandt D. Barnes, Harry G. Miles and Charles Morgan, the last a board member.... His extensive holdings of securities gave Mr. Goadby a place on the boards of several important corporations, his directorships including the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company, the Twin City Rapid Transit Company, the Lanston Monoype Machine Company and the Sheffield Company of Sheffield, Ala." He was the son of Thomas Goadby, an Englishman who came to the U.S. and made a fortune in real estate. (William H. Goadby, Broker, Dies At 76. New York Times, Jul. 5, 1925.) His nephew, W. Goadby Loew, married George F. Baker's daughter, Florence. In 1941, W.H. Goadby & Co. was merged with H.N. Whitney & Sons, and became H.N. Whitney, Goadby & Co., of 49 Wall Street.

The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company

"Every mile is picturesque."

That was the slogan of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western in 1901. This well-kept and financially sound railroad was a bitter rival of the much larger New York Central and Pennsylvania lines, but it managed to remain independent from 1853 until 1960, when it merged with the Erie to form the Erie-Lackawanna.

In 1901 the line ran from Buffalo to Hoboken, New Jersey, conveniently adjacent to new York City, with short spurs to Oswego and Utica in New York and Northumberland in Pennsylvania, just under 1,000 miles of track. It was described by Edwin Herbert (jcrhs.org/dlw.html) as being "the cleanest and most carefully maintained high iron in this country."

The paymaster's draft below was used to transfer payroll funds to the Lackawanna's office In Scranton, Pennsylvania. Scranton was the point on the Buffalo - Hoboken line where the route to Northumberland branched off, and the Scranton Division had its own Superintendent at the time.

The handstamped cancel is rather faint, but hopefully can be seen.

The earliest Lackawanna check in my collection is this one made out to the Northern Steamship Company in December of 1898. It does not specify any bank, but was cleared through the Marine bank of Buffalo and the National Bank of North America in New York city. There is a nice cancel of the railroad Treasurer's Office just above the imprint.

In 1899 the Lackawanna appears to have gone hog-wild so far as check styles are concerned. I haven't made any effort to collect all of them, but here are four used during the year, all with different colors and type styles, and none specifying a bank. The lack of a bank would not be unusual if these were merchant's drafts, collecting amounts from other railroads or merchants, but they are not.

February, 1899, a check signed by W.F. Holwill, General Passenger Agent, to purchase one first class ticket from Philadelphia to Plymouth on the competing Pennsylvania Railroad. It was presented to the Girard National Bank of Philadelphia and cleared through the Chemical National Bank of New York.

February, 1899, a check signed by H.C. Hicks, General Freight Agent, to pay a car service charge claim to one M.I. Archibald. It does not appear to have been cleared through any banks. Petty cash?

The check is quite different in style to that used by the General passenger Agent the day before, though both were operating out of the New York City office.

March, 1899, another check to the Northern Steamship Company, this one for twenty-two claims. It was signed by H.C. Hicks and originated in the General Freight Department like the check above, both for use with claims. Apparently the check style changed completely in the intervening month.

The check was presented to the Marine Bank and cleared through the National Bank of North America, as was the one from 1898.

April, 1899, a third check signed by Hicks, entirely different again. This was written to one C.L. Hackstaff, probably the General East Freight Agent at the time, who cashed it at the Ninth National Bank of the City of New York.

All of these checks show Fred H. Gibbens as treasurer. By 1901 he had resigned, died, or retired, as Fred F. Chambers, previously Secretary, is listed in the Official Guide of the Railways for February 1901 as both Secretary and Treasurer. Hicks had been replaced by P.J. Flynn, and Holwill by T.W. Lee.

One last Lackawanna "check", actually a merchant's draft asking the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa Railroad to reimburse them for ticket sales. It is signed by O.C. Post, General Auditor, who was still around by the time the 1901 Guide was published.

A map of the Lackawanna routes.

The Pittsburgh and Western Railway

The Pittsburgh and Western Railway ran as a self-controlled entity from its founding in 1873 until the B&O took it over in 1902, having had a controlling interest in the road since 1884. It had around 200 miles of track in Western Pennsylvania, some of which was narrow (3 foot) gauge. The railway already shows as being in receivership in the 1901 Official Guide of the Railways. At that time its service from Pittsburgh to Cleveland left from the B&O depot, and continued on from there to Chicago via the B&O.

In 1898 when this freight receipt for a barrel of hinges was written the railroad was still running on its own steam, so to speak.







The road's handstamp cancel was striking, if short-lived.

R164 Layout Dot on the "C" of CENTS

Will we ever escape Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway cancelled stamps?  Here are three more, cancelled over a 10 month period from April 1900 to February 1901, but with an interesting plate anomaly.  The black arrows are placed to call your attention to the lower right section of the "C" in CENTS.  In each case there is a prominent mark or layout dot  in the letter.  The three stamps have very different shades, and were likely purchased for use by the LS&MS over the 10 month period in which the stamps were used, demonstrating persistence in the use of this plate and this plate variety.

The January 2, 2011 posted copy of R164 also has this same layout mark

******

Last year at this time I was writing to you from Diani, on the south coast of Kenya.  Now I am writing to you from Kilifi, on Kenya's north coast.  This is a great place to spend the new year: hot, sunny and lots of quiet beach.  No snow! 

The view from the back porch this morning.