1863 Bank Check With Blue Gw 2 Cent Stamp Jacob Lorillard

I found this bank check in an old picked through stamp collection I bought at the meadowland's flea market over a decade ago. I always thought it might be valuable, but I not sure. Does anybody know anything about these?

It looks like revenue stamp R5c, bank check 2 cents. My scott catalogue, 2006, lists it at about 50 cents. On a check it could be much more if the check was a to or by a famous person, but in your case probably not a great deal. That tear in the middle does not help. But, I wonder what $3,000 then would equal in today's dollars? regards, yakboomer.

Although a common stamp, March 27, 1863 would be considered an early matching usage of a first issue revenue. This means that the label of the stamp, Bank Check, was actually used for the purpose that it was issued, tax on a bank check.
This was the original intent of the law, but due to a general inability to have all the types of stamps available everywhere the government sent out a memo in December of 1862 stating that all first issue stamps could be used for any revenue purpose except for the Proprietary and Playing Cards stamps, which could only be used on those articles. As an early matching usage with the hole it is worth perhaps $5 retail, without the hole perhaps $10. This is the most common of all the EMU's. The EMU period is generally considered to be up to about early June 1863.

Jacob Lorillard was part of the tobacco company family, almost certainly a grandson of P. Lorillard.

n 2011, the relative worth of $3,000.00 from 1863 is:
$55,400.00 using the Consumer Price Index
$45,100.00 using the GDP deflator
$422,000.00 using the unskilled wage
$840,000.00 using the Production Worker Compensation
$640,000.00 using the nominal GDP per capita
$5,940,000.00 using the relative share of GDP

Thanks for all the info. Oh well it looks like the book was picked over too well. I was hoping this was something they might have missed. The best ones I was able to find was a couple stamps from japan in it worth only about 20 ea.

It is cool to think of the history and how much money this was back then.

davvvid2, keep hunting, in this hobby you never know what you will find.