My First Documentary

While working my way through a bidStart auction last Saturday this item caught my attention and I decided that I just had to have it. I think it was a combination of the design and the cancel that pushed me to bid on it. I only have one other revenue in my collection, a 3c proprietary (R18), so this was really unusual behavior on my part. Following all the revenue discussion on this forum was probably a contributing factor.



After I won the lot I did a little "research" on Google and found that the Manhattan Trust Company had been established in 1871 as the Real Estate Trust Company of the City of New York. In 1886 its name was changed to Manhattan Trust Company and in 1912 it was merged into State Bankers Trust Company.

But I think what I found most interesting was that $50 in 1899 was the equivalent of slightly more than $1272 in 2009. It's too bad the stamp wasn't on a document because I'd like to have known what that tax was being paid for.

This thread from 2008 provides additional background on the 1898 issue and has some nice images of the different dollar denominations:

https://goscf.com/t/2999

Nice stamp and cancel. I have some revenues, but not that high a value.

Nice and clean R178

Welcome to the World of Revenues!

Maybe I can self-refer to Revenue Rehab before I'm too far gone and save myself a ton of money!

Not likely! Their ink's are specially formulated so that once you gaze upon them and appreciate their beauty you become terminally hooked ...Forever!

I like the cancel too. I like strange wiggly odd-shaped but still pleasing to the eye cancels. Nice colour too, pops out at you.

This is my first documentary - it came in today's mail:



But one question: why imperf at the top? Did these stamps come in booklets?

jimjam, these stamps were printed by the flat plate process. The were printed in sheets of 200 consisting of 4 panes of 50 separated by vertical and horizontal centerlines. The panes were cut on the centerlines so that each pane would have two straight edges.
Edit: Below is a 400 subject flat plate layout hpefully it will help to see how these straight edges were created.

Russ, was this process just for Internal Revenue stamps?

jimjam, no this was for all flat plate printings. Regular postage stamps were also printed this way until the installation of the first rotary presses in 1914. Flat plate presses were used to some degree until the mid-1950's.

Jimjamtwo: I like your stamp, but I can't say that I know very much about the gentleman pictured on it, so I came up with this brief biography from the internet. Quite an obscure name from early US history to be sure:

hmm. I should post some images similar to the guy above. I just added about 150 revenues to my collection from an album purchased and described earlier.

wt1, this was definitely one of the things I liked about the stamp - that it had a different face from usual on it!

Thanks for the info.