What Was Ten Dollars To The Person Who Bought This Stamp?

I was just looking at this newly acquired what I believe to be a R281, and couldn't help thinking about the value of Ten Dollars in 1940 compared to now. Its amazing to think about how the U.S. Dollar has depreciated in that time. I found a online site that said with Consumer Price Index figured this Ten Dollars was like $160 in today's money. If that is correct the people who originally bought must have hated to buy these stamps. $160 ouch But maybe the documents were very important or these were some type of tax stamp. Anybody who knows what stamps like these were used on please fill me in. If I am going to collect them I should know what they were for. Thanks

Think of the $5 Stamp from the Columbian exposition issue of 1893. The Documentary series of 1914 - 1915 had a $1,000 Stamp.

The distilled spirit's tax stamps of 1950 had a $50,000 high value.
The $10 dated documentary was part of the set immediately before the documentary reds came out. Documentaries were used to pay a wide range of taxes on financial paper, including deeds, receipts, stock and bond purchases, etc. Documentary stamps generally fall into two groups, "VERY Common to Fairly Common"(95%), and "Very Scarce(4%) to Impossible to Find"(1%).

rev.. I think you have a couple "Impossible to Find" in your collection..

No, I don't. When it comes to documentaries, my main interest is plate varieties on the first three issues.
I've been very fortunate in that I have seen almost every revenue listed in Scott plus a very wide range of non Scott listed material over the years, some of which I collect as well. I got in with the right people while still a teenager, that was just dumb good luck.

Thanks I figured they were some type of tax stamp.

"United States Internal Revenue" written around Liberty probably was a clue. :-)