Unused Revenue Stamped Paper

I don't actively collect revenue stamped paper, but I've acquired some examples over the years just because they can be so darned attractive. I generally go for used ones because of cancels, ornate 19th century penmanship, etc. I also have a few that were never used but have great eye appeal for me. I just received the first one shown below, which inspired this post.

Ewww.... uncanceled.... ewwwww.....

Seriously though, I love the vignettes on items like these and the color contrast between the vignettes and the revenue imprint.

Beautiful - as one who collects revenue items relating to the Comstock Lode, I especially like the note from neighboring Manhattan Silver Mine. Here's more info: http://www.donckelly.com/obsolete/nv_obs.html

The Manhattan Silver Mine scrip exists on 7 denominations, $1 black, $3 brown, $5 green, $20 brown, $50 red, and $100 orange in addition to the $10 shown above. They were taxed as drafts.

Great vignettes! Thanks for the post.

I did not know that! It would be great to have the set.

The URL above has all of the notes for sale. Not cheap, but the color contrast across the set is gorgeous.

Oh geez. There they are. And I haven't paid off my Christmas bills yet!

Although equal quantities of these drafts were printed (and never used!) the finder has dribbled out a lot of the $5, $10, and $20 denominations, the remaining four denominations , $1, $3, $50, and $100 are relatively scarce. If I recall correctly, I have all but the $3. My $50 and $100 have the stubs at left. These stubs were trimmed from most denominations. The idea behind them was to pay the miners with these drafts so the owners did not have to travel to San Francisco to get cold hard cash. The miners wanted only cold hard cash, thus ending any attempt to use these drafts.

One can also find contemporary used checks from the Manhattan Silver Mining Company as well, a delightful adjunct to the drafts.

This seems like the appropriate thread to pose a question. I collect obsolete stocks and bonds, though not revenue stamped paper, specifically. I noticed a stock from the Chicago and South Western Railway Co also had a nice U1 revenue imprint -- but then I also noticed something else. Printed in small letters on the right side is "Revenue stamp presented for redemption."

What's the story here? Since this is an unissued stock, was the company able to get a refund on pre-payment of tax? Do the punch holes represent a form of cancellation?

Whenever the taxes ended, the government would redeem any unused stamps.

We have never seen used imprinted stock shares from the Chicago & South Western. These remainders were sent to the government after October 1, 1872 to redeem the unused imprinted tax stamps. At some point after that the remainders were punched so that they could not be used. There are three versions: this one that could be issued for any number of odd shares, a 50 share, and a 100 share certificate. The fact that it is imprinted with the type you 25¢ stamp tells us that these were imprinted fairly late in the taxable period, late 1871 or 1872. They are among the most common of the imprinted stock certificates.

Which entity would have rubber stamped the redemption text, the company or the government?

In order to get their money back, they had to submit the certificates to Internal Revenue.