US 2c Inter. Rev. Prop.

I'm getting a bit gun shy given that the Scott catalogues available to me seem to lump things. Can someone provide me with the Scott number for this internal revenue proprietary stamp?

It is RB12 -- RB12a if on silk paper and RB12b if watermarked 191R. See http://www.revenue-collector.com/prop2.shtml for examples of both.

That does not look Brown to me. RB12 is Brown.

Thanks for the information and the link. Its probably the strangest stamp in my collection. The paper has a "silky smooth" texture. It has a sheen to it that gives one the impression it would glow in the dark or that it is translucent. The paper is sort of lead-coloured, which gives the stamp a hue that I suppose could be described as brown.

My reason for not trusting my Scott books is that they use the 1c Washington as the example for the issue's design (RB2) whose "one cent" designation consists of two arches across the bottom. Of course, I thought the 2c would have the same arches rather than the "two cent" horizontal bar that this one has.

I haven't detected any watermarks so will put this in my collection as RB12a. Again thanks.

That seems to be a problem with Scott and the U.S. revenues in general. Fortunately, there are a number of useful sites on the Internet to fill in the blanks. In addition to the Revenue Collector's site, I've also found James Dire's site to be helpful: http://www.jamesdire.net/ri/revenue.html

Steve

Steve: thanks for the link. At the top of his page James Dire succinctly says it all.




I think that's worthwhile putting in my profound quotes thread.

could that stamp be a proof?

SV, I'm fairly sure it is RB12 -- a search of Eric Jackson's site for RB12 will yield numerous examples.

http://www.ericjackson.com/catalog/results.asp