Some Recent Acquisitions

Just picked up a small collection of revenues with these items:







Though not terribly expensive, just not something you come across every day.

As a bonus, the R191a and RD11a are not cut, as is common with a lot of these issues. In addition, the overprint on the RD11a has a distinct orange color (I think). Can anyone verify if they have copies of RD11 or RD11a if the overprint is definitely red or an orange hue?

The RI14 is very scarce used.

Alas, they would probably have overprinted at least several hundred thousand before they changed over to black, and various sub-shades do exist on them just as they do on the control numbers of the higher values.

Nice pick ups, the orange red hue is correct. The tax exempt potatoes in used condition is also very nice, its funny that even though these did get used before the act was invaladated by the courts they were not listed in Scott till a few years ago.

I am aware of 2 values of the other potato tax stamps that appear to be used with contemporary cancels (2 lbs. and 50 lbs.). Since they were not supposed to be used, I don't know what to make of them. I plan to bring them to Grand Rapids to show to Richard and Eric, but since they are not on a tag there is little to prove them either way.

If I recall there is a catalog note that a few of the tax-exempt potato stamps were actually used. I haven't seen used examples before, but just recently started collecting the potato stamps.

Some of the "tax exempt" stamps were used, but the law was declared unconstitutional before the "tax paid" stamps were supposed to be used. Unless someone accidentally used the second when they meant to use the first.

The Warren Potato Act was part of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of August 24, 1935. The tax exempt stamps began to be used in early December, 1935. On January 6, 1936 the US Supreme Court ruled that processing taxes could not be used to pay benefit payments under production control contracts. The government ceased collecting the taxes immediately and the Warren Potato Act was repealed a month later.

However, all of the used examples of the tax exempt stamps that I have seen were used between January 3 and February 4, 1936.

I have recently seen two examples of the potato tax stamps, the 2 lb. and the 50 lb. used dated Dec 26, 1935. They should not have been used, but possibly someone needed the tax exempt stamps and they were not available and so used these. Alas they are not on a tag or a document although the cancels look right for the period.

In the case of the RD11a, Scott's makes the distinction on the high value issues between red and orange serial numbers (R249, RC20, RD23) and blue and green serial numbers (R246,RC16, RD19). Shouldn't the same argument be said for the red vs orange overprint on the RD11? Or the other Future Delivery or Stock Transfers with red overprint? Does anyone know of orange overprints on these?