Of All Things To Tax... Matches??

The Feds were very shrewd in taxing photographs. At the time of the Civil War, every young draftee and volunteer went down and had pictures taken, sometimes in partial uniform, to give to the family, the sweetheart, and the employer, in case he didn't come back. Also, there were tens of thousands of independent photographers working around the country, and therefore no particular way for them to unite and oppose the tax.

Many casualties returned home in unrecognizable condition, with only minimal preservation techniques available en route, and in some cases only the photographs could provide positive identification.

If you see more than 25c in revenue stamps on the back of a photograph, you may have a significant rarity (if they are tied, and not added later, that is), since 99% of all photographs were taxed at lower rates. Also, the accidental use of some special-purpose revenue (like the playing card stamp on a photograph, confirmed genuine) tends to bring an exceptional price.

Anything other than 2 or 3 cents is at least uncommon. The tax on photos was only in effect for a couple of years and was based on the cost price of the photograph. Sometimes the photographer would add up the total cost of a group of images and just put one stamp on one photo to cover the total tax. This wasn't legal, but no one really cared as long as the tax was paid.

It should also be noted that playing cards stamps were valid for the photo tax. Originally, each stamp was supposed to pay the tax that was stated upon it, playing cards for that use only, etc. By December of 1862 it was obvious that this was impractical and a note was sent that the playing cards and proprietary stamps were to be used interchangeably on proprietary articles only, and that all other stamps could be used for any documentary tax as needed. That is why the playing cards stamps were discontinued after the supply ran out; proprietary stamps took over those tax payments. This is also why the 2 cent USIR was issued in orange, and most of the other orange stamps ended as they ran out and the blue proprietary became the work horse for those taxes. This is why the orange proprietary is a much less common stamp. Of course certain stamps like the blue and orange bank check had been issued in huge quantities already and with several plates already made they simply kept using them to fill the demand. The first issue is a fascinating issue, so much happened with them during the 9 years it was in use.

Just think of it this way: We still pay tax on matches! Sales tax!
Back then, "in the old days", at least you received a pretty stamp to prove you paid your taxes!

Sometimes. There was no law that a company had to use the private dies, only that they had to pay the tax. Plenty of proprietaries were used, originally from the first issue and than the RB's.

Also this was a use tax. Sales taxes are very different.

Revcollector, I was not trying to be technical about taxes. What I was doing was lamenting the fact that we don't have these beautifully engraved stamps any more!

True, but if we did than the modern ones probably would not be held in the esteem that the classics are. After all, revenue stamps in various forms lasted until 1971 and relatively few of the 20th century stamps could be called truly beautiful. I like a lot of them and collect several, but artistically they cannot really compete with the classics most of the time.

Let's be thankfull we don't have to use stamps when we pay all the taxes on gas!

...and be thankful you don't pay the tax on gas/petrol that we do in the UK

I have heard that in Europe, gas is so expensive, it is one of the reasons there are so many bikes. Also, there is some tax in London that has to do with emissions, right?

I'm a long way from London, so I don't know the details, but I think there is a zone within London that you can't enter if your vehicle doesn't meet some pollution limits. There is also an area which has a "congestion charge", which is basically a road toll.
I'm in the wilds of Scotland. Congestion is a few sheep on the road... But it costs around US$130 to fill the tank of my car.

That is it, the congestion charge. Do you have to pay a "shearing tax" in order to use your roads?? ;-) $130US is a lot... I wonder how many gallons your tank is? My boyfriend's truck has the equivilant of two tanks, so it costs him twice as much to fill up!

No Shearing charge, but you're not allowed to do a ewe-turn...
My tank is an average family car.
We pay road tax, too, in the UK, for each vehicle. Its about £200/US$300. per year, more if you have a bigger vehicle/engine.
You can buy savings stamps towards your road tax at the post office.

At one time Canada had revenue stamps paying the tax on gasoline.