Have Another Beer Stamp!

While I have a pretty extensive collection of large-sized taxpaid revenues, I have only two beer stamps. I was surprised that no one had started a thread on these beauties, so I'm taking the initiative! I'd love to see some others, which I'm hoping will inspire me to expand this area of my collection.

The central engravings on these are Thomas Hart Benton on REA39 and "Bacchus serving the first fermented brew to man" on REA31. Lo, these many years, I had misidentified the latter as a low-value stamp and only today realized it has a pretty high cat value! Correct me if I'm still misidentifying it.

Hi

I thought you might want to see what was used after the beer stamp tax was no longer in effect. Kind of fast forwarding to the very end of the Scott listings, and then some.

This half barrel value, and a similar-appearing blue 1 barrel value, were used by the Hamm Brewing Company around 1956. They have a pre-punched 55 mm. hole in the center, which was apparently removed after cancellation. They are both described (but not illustrated) in Priester's Beer stamp book.

These facsimile stamps are similar to the match and medicine facsimile stamps as illustrated in one of mine and one of the Springer books, and the cigarette "in lieu" stamps, as described in a previous post.

Jim

Yes a REA39 and a REA31 with good cancellations. The REA31 comes in shades of red-brown, brown and dark brown.

Sc REA12a die cut 1867 issue 1 barrel,$1 black. Population 5 known.

Here is a beer stamp REA192 from 1947. There is also a smaller type Sc REA174 issued in 1933 the end of Prohibition.

Nice examples, everbody -- thanks for posting. I've been wondering about the circular cut-outs on the early beer stamps. Some of these look hand cut and others are perfectly round, like a die-cut. Is this how these were issued or were they cut out later?

The early beer stamps were issued in sheets of 20 stamps. Four rows of five stamps. They were then generally cut square and were suppose to cover the bung hole of the barrel. In order to better cover the bung hole some were then cut circular by hand or die cut.

A very tough Lincoln to obtain. Lincoln collectors collect "everything" Lincoln and are big time bidders. Took me 5 tries to obtain a high grade Lincoln and I am a strong bidder.

redwoodrandy, that is lovely revenue. I never knew these existed until now. Congratulations!

An even tougher stamp is Sc REA29b $2 One Hogshead depicting Alexander Hamilton. A Hogshead is a unit of measure equal to two barrels of beer.

Are dual printings like your great looking 16 2/3 barrel beer stamp common among beer stamps or revenues in general? Pretty!
Which paper is it? My old catalogue lists REA21 on white silk and three sub varieties of colored silks. If the one was tough to acquire, good luck with the other three!

The REA21 is on white silk paper. The center portraits of the 1871 series issue including the plate letters and position numbers are by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The frames are by the National Bank Note Co.

The REA21 on white silk population 73 known. The REA21a on pinkish gray silk population 15 known. The REA21b on gray silk population 83 known. The REA21c on green silk 41 known.

The 1875,1878,1898 and 1902 issues are all by the Bureau with center portraits engraved and typographed frames.

Here is my REA21b gray silk. REA21a and REA21c are on my wanted list.

Beautiful! Finding the other two is going to be waiting to see who's collection is sold next. 41 & 15? These will possibly be in the same auction. Good Luck.

Those are gorgeous! Thanks for posting. And also thanks for pointing out the unusual circumstance that both the BEP and National Bank Note have imprints on the same stamp. This particular series was being printed right at the time that the Bureau was ramping up to take on all printing of U.S. currency, securities and tax stamps. But that didn't officially happen until the late 1870s and in the meantime they had still had to job out some of the work to the bank note firms.

Well, I got motivated and started hunting for these online. Found a set of three at a very good price. These are a bit scruffy and whoever trimmed one of them to size also clipped a little off the top. But I'm happy to add them to my tiny collection. Let me know if I've cataloged these correctly:

REA16


REA22


REA32