Need Help Identifying A Cancel On Another Narcotic Stamp

This weird cancel reads (I think):

4P DeS & Sep

Does anyone have any idea what this means?

Or why this text is in such a strange font?

Jim

My guess

A. E. DeS & Son

James, I do not think it is a strange font, but a very fancy font. And I read it like Ciletaliph.

Peter

Thanks to you both.

This is what Google says:



LOL.

I'll have to keep looking.

Jim

The Google bot 'lives*' on this site, it gets things indexed and added to Google searches typically within a minute or two of a new post. Kudos to Bobby on this.
Don

*It has pitched a tent and camps out 24/7.

The "F" looks more like a B or R, with a curved-down top right corner.
And a mixed case "DeS" for a last name.
I would include A. B. DeS & Son as well as A. R. DeS & Son in searches. or P?
I would have thought the Internal Revenue folks would have a master list of manufacturers / users of these stamps stashed away in the archives?

John,

There is a 1916 listing of manufacturers of drugs available online. It's called The Era Druggists' Directory.

As there is a period after "A" and whatever the second letter is, I assume that the third word isn't an abbreviation of a longer word.

I searched the whole thing for "oes" and "des" names and didn't find any likely candidates.

But now I'm thinking that the reason why the "S" is capitalized in "Des" is because the word is "De S(something)" and the period is just missing.

Possible?

Jim

Possible but not probable. There does not seem enough room between the e and the S for a dot.

Peter

Peter,

I meant a missing period after the "S" and before the ampersand.

So, DeS.

Jim

DeSoto is the first thing that came to my mind.

Bart,

I searched for that name and came up with no potential companies.

This stylized font is throwing me as to what the letters really are.

Jim

After staring at the strange alphabet for a few minutes, I believe the following:

1.) There are no periods on the visible part of name. What appears to be periods are flourishes (fancy ending strokes) of the letters. The capital "A" cross stroke has one extending to the right. The first capital "S" has them in front and behind. You can see these flourishes better on the second capital "S" (Son).

2.) Second letter looks like it might be "R". Not so sure about this.