I usually don't buy revenues on documents, but when this became available buy-it-now on ebay for only $5, I had to grab it. It's condition is absolutely amazing and came with a separate sheet that details payments made. Interesting that the bottom of the R87 is clipped. Otherwise it and the R69 are in fine shape. Neither contain any plate irregularities.
I'm curious, since documents like this are not my specialty, how do you value it?
In my limited experience the document probably has limited or no significant value unless signed by a famous person(s), or documented a historical event. It might have some value to genealogy researchers or title researchers.
I guess the value would be that of the stamps then. Interesting Google research of the names on the doc. He was married to Georgiette A. Prescott and he was in Real Estate, retired, aged 62 according to the 1880 census. That would have made him 48 in 1866. Not sure if there was a relationship to the prestigious William H. Prescott family.
The best source of information on Civil War revenue documents is Mike Mahler's book A Catalog of United States Revenue-Stamped Documents of the Civil War Era by Type and tax Rate. As stated in the title the documents are valued based on the type of document and tax rate. If I'm reading your document correctly, it is a June 1866 conveyance of land for $3,500 with a $2,000 mortgage on the property. It was taxed $3.50 (50˘ per $500 or part thereof)with the mortgage separately taxed $1.00 (10˘ per $200 or part thereof). Mahler rates the conveyance as rarity "1" (the most common) but the mortgage is an example of a fairly short-lived rate and is rarity 5 (on a 1 to 10 scale). Mahler assigns a "baseline value" of $3 for the conveyance and $20 for the mortgage.
Mahler's book is available from the American Revenue Association - $45 for non-members, $36 for members.
Nice snag. I saw the listing but I got ADD and moved on to something else and forgot to come back.
Quote: In my limited experience the document probably has limited or no significant value unless signed by a famous person(s), or documented a historical event. It might have some value to genealogy researchers or title researchers.
While that may be true of documents in a general sense, that is most definitely NOT the case when it comes to revenue stamped documents.
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Posted 06/05/2015 4:14 pm
