Butter Fat Revenue Usage?

A gentleman at the local show yesterday had two of these, that he believes to be postage improperly used as revenues.

There was one with a 2-cent coil affixed, and this one with a 3-cent coil affixed, both on these partial envelope remnants and both with the same straight line handstamp. He offered me one gratis and I chose this one, as it also had the little slip shown below contained inside it.

What exactly is this and what is the stamp paying? Is it really a revenue usage?

like the oleo stamps I would guess they ran out and had to use something

I have no idea what this is, but it looks very interesting. Wished you had the whole form. I can not think of any reason why there would be two (different) amounts due listed?

Peter

All but guaranteed to be a postal use of some kind. Postal cancel, oleo tax was 1/4 cents per pound and paid on the product containers, and this appears to be part of a trucking company receipt. No possible way I can think of for an amount that small to be a revenue usage here. Perhaps Ron will chime in, he knows far more about oleo taxes than I do.

Since it is an envelope, there was probably a window with the address printed on the paperwork inside, which was then presumably sent to the home office.

The slip inside is interesting and hints at the annual inspection and reporting that was done in the 'old days.' (Iowa ran their tests from June 1 through 15, for instance.)

I won't pretend to know how it was all done, but cheesemakers, in particular, had to report the amount of butter fat they received from farmers and other suppliers.

But then wouldn't have the markings and annotations above either been on the paperwork inside the envelope or on the backside of the envelope, rather than on the front address side of the envelope? This format seems unusual... unless it was sent in blank and the stamping and penciling was done after receipt, as a confirmation/summary of the contents.

I suppose the difference between one having a 2-cent stamp affixed and the other a 3-cent could be that this envelope had more papers inside and triggered the next ounce rate.


It just seems if a postal use, an odd layout/position for it.

[2c] The lab was returning the test results. [/2c]

Meanwhile, laptop on my lap, I peered over my belly to read the topic as "Butter fat revenge usage?"

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Sometimes having the (non-sensitive) data on the outside makes it a lot faster to deal with a large quantity of data coming in, both for sorting and actual data collection.

I agree with most of the comments that this is not a revenue use. The two rates were ¼ ¢ per pound for uncolored margarine and 10¢ per pound for colored. The federal tax on oleo expired June 30, 1950. It seems likely that Wisconsin did not permit the sale of oleo during the time period when the Prexies were in service. The suggested test on butter fat for the making of cheese in Wisconsin seems like a plausible explanation, but I see not evidence that it is the state doing the testing. Further I see no evidence that a tax is being paid. Perhaps a receipt for truck transportation?

I'm glad that nowdays they hide all the taxes in the price so I dont get mad about all the tax I have to pay, the ones I see are bad enough.

Perhaps I'll have more time to explore this more tomorrow, but there was a program in Wisconsin years ago that charged an excise tax for butterfat for a limited period each year. I don't know who did the testing, but the report and tax were sent to the State and the funds raised went to milk board research and promotion. Milk was--and still is--very important to Wisconsin.

A dealer just contacted me with another example, this one being the complete envelope, along with some collateral material contained within it. There is nothing printed or written on the back of the envelope, and the envelope has never been sealed.

I still see nothing that indicates a postal use, but we now have a full date.

What tax could it possibly be paying? It still has to be postal, a rate or possibly paying a fee of some kind?

I vote for a postal use. I believe both of these butter reports fall under the private express provisions of the PL&R. Postage was required for letter/parcels carried outside of the mails. Consider these, which I believe to be similar uses:

I know of federal tax on butter fat. Highly unlikely that this postage stamp is paying a tax. I think we will have to wait for someone from Wisconsin to shed some additional light on this delivery of milk. Is the milk being delivered by truck to someone who is making cheese?