R151 Earliest Known Use

Do any of the experts know what the earliest known use of R151 is?

I was going through some boxes and found this check dated December 24th, 1872. Scott's says the issue date of this is 1874.

The green paper was not introduced until 1874. This is reinforced as the green paper was also introduced on the alcohol taxpaids at the same time. I have no explanation for the green paper stamp on an 1872 check.

Ron,

I thought about this a little more. Some first issues (ex, R6e, R15e) were on green paper. Could this be a plausible explanation that this is the same green paper that was used on this particular item?

The green paper of the first issue experiment does not have any fibers in it. The green paper of R151, the first proprietary "b" varieties, and the alcohol tax paids does have silk or linen fibers.

Retroactive payment/affixing of stamp? We've seen backdating occur on similar earlier transactions.

Dan,

I am aware of backdating, but this seems like more than a year backdating. Most of the backdating I have seen is on other forms of legal documents and may have been done when filed in a courthouse or other governmental venue. There are logical reasons that accompany such documents that make the backdating plausible. We know that there were sales of stamps after June 30, 1883 to accommodate such backdating. But since this is a check payable to "self" and almost certainly presented in person in the bank, I doubt that the cashier would have accepted this check without the requisite stamp.

Plus the fact is the check itself is dated December 24, 1872. I doubt the bank would have accepted it backdated at least two years.

The thought wasn't that the check was accepted or processed 2 years after the fact, but rather that the stamp was affixed 2 years after the fact to prove that the tax had been paid.

It's also possible that is not actually green. This stamp must be seen.

Good call. The orange and green in the image seemed overly saturated, almost fluorescent. Here is the same image, the only adjustement made being a desaturation of -48 done in Photoshop.

I'm not saying this is how the document actually looks in hand compared to the first image, but rather to show how simple image-editing software or TWAIN module settings in scanning can result in vastly different images.

Ok, I'm a novice on all this. Who bought the stamps for checks? Who canceled them? At what point in the process were they affixed?Was it 2 cents per check, or was it based on the amount of the check? thanks

Joe

The tax was 2 cents per check and not based on the amount of the check. In most cases the stamps were purchased by the writer of the check, although there are examples where the bank affixed the stamp and charged the writer of the check.

There were very few checking accounts of private individuals. Most were business accounts.

Thanks

joe

Dan,

Pretty accurate representation of the color. I guess the check itself makes the stamp more "greenish". It just didn't look violet to me compared to the check.