Some Interesting Book Wine Stamps

This should get us started on the subject of the book wine stamps, Scott RE56-59 and RE107A-D.

Philip H. Ward, Jr. in his column in the December 25, 1953 Mekeel's Weekly reported an imperf $50 (RE58) with serial 12340. Does anyone know the whereabouts of the stamp that ward reported?

Many years ago I acquired the imperf RE58 with serial 12341 pictured here. Looking carefully, I think that most of you will agree that this has the thin serial numbers characteristic of RE107C. Based on the Bureau Annual Reports, these two serial numbers were delivered in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1928. This suggests that the thin serial numbers were initiated in 1927-28 at the same time that the thin serials were initiated on some the special tax stamps (more on that later).

This runs counter to the Scott Specialized's date of 1933 for RE107C. Raises some questions about how we differentiate and catalog the book wine stamps.

Here is a delightful artifact of the Prohibition Era. From a barrel of altar wine produced by the Novitiate of Los Gatos. The $20.20 is paying the tax on just under 51 gallons of wine which is between 14 and 21% alcohol, the so-called sweet wines.

OK, so it is not pristine, but what do you expect for stamps that graced a barrel of wine?

Pristine???? It's amazing that it even survived. And there are far worse looking revenues out there then this.

Here we have another built up RE56 with perfin CWA, which is the canceller of California Wine Association. We also see the damage from the screen that was placed over the stamps and hammered to secure (protect??) the stamps on the barrel.

California Wine Association was formed in 1884 and grew to operating 64 wineries and was caught with over 6 million gallons of wine in storage when Prohibition began in 1920. This combination was for a barrel of wine that was probably shipped to the east coast for bottling, no doubt destined for sacramental use.

Yet another Prohibition use of a built-up RE56. This was used by California Grape Products Company (a wonderful reminder of its Prohibition era roots). It eventually became part of the Fruit Industries, Ltd. combine.

It may be significant that the three built-up examples shown in this thread precede the 6/28/28 reduction of the tax on wines to a fourth of the previous rate. This effectively made the RE56 stamp obsolete for use on barrels of wine, which were about 51 gallons.