New Reference Page For US Customs Fee Stamps (Scott Rl Series)

I've been going down a rabbit hole on the Scott # RL series stamps over the past several months, and as a result, I've put together a reference page that goes over the history, relevant authorization, etc.

I discuss the (in my opinion) spurious RL1 bisects (Scott #RL1b).

I've also started maintaining censuses of items of interest to me:

1. Multiples (pairs, blocks, strips). Unlisted in Scott and seemingly far more scarce than one would think.

2. Plate number captures and singles.

3. Complete documents. Currently there are only document uses of RL1 (the vast majority), RL2, RL3, and RL9. There are no reported examples of documents with the 50-cent through 90-cent denominations.

Images have been obtained from collectors, dealers, and auction archives, as well as items from my own collection (acknowledgement to contributors provided on the page). I'm fully aware that there are many more items out there than what are listed, but you have to start somewhere and my hope is to get other collectors to share images.

If you have or know of any items not listed in the censuses, I would greatly appreciate images.

https://revenue-collector.com/customsfee/


The most interesting document in the group (in my opinion) is the one shown below that I acquired from Eric Jackson at Chicagopex in November. While tattered (many of these documents are), and a document split bisects the RL1 stamp (thankfully not the important stamp on the document), it is very scarce in several respects, the most important being a characteristic I didn't realize until well after I acquired the document and was doing the research for this page.

1. It is (currently) the only reported example of the 40-cent denomination (Scott #RL4) on document.

2. It is the only reported document containing two DIFFERENT RL stamps.

3. The document and cancel date is FAR earlier than any of the 26 other documents in my census. So early, in fact, that it predates the authorization date for the use of customs fee stamps contained in Treasury Decision 8312 (July 9, 1887) by 3 days. They likely knew the stamps were going to be authorized, so decided to start using them.

Dan - this is very interesting. I hope you will consider submitting the census information for publication in The American Revenuer.

cant see your images

In the post or on the linked web page? There is only one image posted above.

Given the type of use, and the high volume that might have been used, especially of the low values, it's not surprising that there are very few multiples known. And this type of document would not have been saved very often once the merchandise was released and delivered; there would have been no real need for it.

Very nice research Dan, second the thought that this should be published in the American Revenuer.