Narcotic Stamp Registration Numbers

Different plants in the same district? Wholesaler as well as manufacturer? We might need to know more about the corporate setup to know.

Why didn't more of these old coots write down some of this stuff at the time, so that we could Google it in 2017?

Well I guess they weren't old in 1919, but now they are.

Jim

I think that there is sufficient evidence that the location is what gets the registration number. Thus the Mallinckrodt that Jim shows is a wholesale dealer at a specific location, but the Importer Manufacturer STS for Mallinckrodt at the same St. Louis address has the same registration number! That suggests that FY1920 annual report contains some duplication. Mallinckrodt is at least double counted in that report. So is McKesson & Robbins, who had at least three registration numbers in New York Second District (Lower Manhattan). Therefor we should not expect registration numbers as high as 239,000 in 1920.

I also have a Parke, Davis facility in Atlanta that has a registration number of 2454 as a wholesaler.

The highest registration number for which I have an example is for a practitioner (circa 14,000) presumably a newly minted physician much later. So practitioners also had registration numbers intermixed with manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and laboratories.

I think the jury is still out on Lilly having a registration number of 113,363. Only when a different location or address is found is a different registration number required and given. Given that practitioners were assigned registration numbers, why do we not see registration numbers on the special the special tax stamps above 15,000?

I think I will stay with my earlier assumption that Lilly also had at least three registration numbers for various locations, namely 4, 113, and 363.

Ron,

Not to belabor this point, but the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 described the assignment of registration numbers to individuals, not to locations:




Further in the act is this phrase:




So I would take that to mean that just one number was assigned to each person or entity, per class, even if that entity was located in multiple locations.

In the later amendment (the Revenue Act of 1918), there is this entry:




So this is where the multiple registration numbers come from. One number for an importer, and another special tax/registration number if that importer manufactured products "not of their own manufacture."

For those that want to read century-old legal text, the act can be found here:

https://www.erowid.org/psychoactive...cs_act.shtml

Jim

Jim,

To belabor the point here, I have both a Wholesale Dealer STS from Mallinckrodt with registration number 1933 and a Importer, Manufacturer STS from Mallimckrodt with registration number 1933. That does not match with your reading of the law.

Ron,




Then how would you interpret it?

Jim

So here are two special tax stamps for fiscal year 1951, both from Mallinckrodt, same address. One is for wholesaler and the other for Importer, Manufacturer. Both have the same registration number. So just because they are acting as a wholesaler of someone else's manufactured product doesn't cause them to get a different registration number.

Wouldn't this be reported as separate statistics in the 1920 table? So the table might not reflect the number of separate registrants.

Ahh!

I understand now.

I was under the impression all along that your special tax stamps were dated the same year!

I interpret your early (1945) wholesale tax stamp class to have simply changed to a different class around 1951, when they no doubt started to import as well as wholesale.

The registration number was simply reissued.

Or something along those lines.

So, I hold by my earlier interpretation of the law.

Jim

I scanned the wrong Wholesale Dealer STS. I do have a 1951 Wholesale STS for Fiscal Year 1951 for Mallickrodt. Will try to get it scanned later and post it.

No need to do so.

It makes no sense for a manufacturer to need multiple special tax stamps (i.e. be in several classes), except for the text shown in the "Class 1" quote, above. And if that was the case, they would have two different registration numbers.

It does make sense though that, in 1951, this manufacturer changed its class from wholesaler to importer, and the registration number was simply re-used.

Unless someone can show any other example of a manufacturer holding more than one special tax stamp with the same registration number on each stamp, for a given year.

Jim

So here is the Fiscal Year 1951 Mallinckrodt Wholesale Dealer STS that I meant to post earlier. so we can see the Mallinckrodt had both a Manufacturer and Wholesale Dealer with the same registration number, 1933.

Jim - Enjoy explaining the two special tax stamps with the same registration number for fiscal year 1951.

Ron is right.

I apologize for thinking differently.

I found the tiny piece of proof that I needed to explain why different registration numbers are on the same company's cancels, and also to explain why the same registration number appears on different special tax stamps, from the same company at the same address.

Of which, another example pair is shown below.

Now I have to figure out where the very high registration numbers are coming from.

Jim

Source: Title 26 – Chapter I – Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, Revised as of January 1, 1961, section 151.28

Jim,

If the 1961 quote in your last post reflects past practice going back to 1914 and 1919, i.e., the district collector assigned the numbers, then a range of numbers was probably assigned to each collector. In 1934, for example, there were, if I recall correctly 64 districts. In fact, about 1917 there was a consolidation of the different Kentucky districts into one. So in 1914, when there were more districts, the number of districts was substantially greater. That is probably why we get such a large range of registration numbers. And, of course, a lot of numbers that never got assigned. The highest registration number seen does not equate with the total number of registrants.

Ron (and anyone else that's interested),

I have found contemporaneous proof that the numbers weren't assigned to each internal revenue district in ranges.*



Based on this, it looks like there were potentially up to 64 registration number 1's in the country in 1919, 64 number 2's, and so on.

Also, based on the previous clip that I posted, registration numbers were reused after a time.

So, the numbers were not uniquely assigned to just one company permanently, really.

I believe that the most logical conclusion then is that certain companies, in an effort to become or remain exclusive or uniquely identifiable, requested and then received registration numbers that no one else could ever possibly receive in the normal course of assignment.

Remember that the narcotic stamps, with their cancellations, were regularly seen by the consumer.

These firms with high numbers, such as The Upjohn Company (11,576), the Eli Lilly Company (113,363), and Parke, Davis and Company (149,834), must have thought that it was worthwhile to obtain a number that was exclusive to themselves.

Surely there was some competition, even back in 1919 with drug manufacturers.



I can understand now that perhaps the Eli Lilly Company was assigned registration number 4 at first. But then they saw the same number on a competitors' product, and when they opened another factory in Indianapolis, Indiana, they requested a number that no one else would ever use, 113,363. Of course they continued to use their number 4. As a very large user of the narcotic stamps, surely they had some "pull" at the local internal revenue office.



Since the applications were filed alphabetically, the numbers themselves weren't critical, as long as they weren't used twice in the same district.

Since the registration numbers were not unique, it explains these two stamps, which have puzzled me for some time.



The one on the left is cancelled with "#1" and with "PWR Co," The Powers – Weightman – Rosengarten Company, which was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The one on the right also has "#1" and has the "narcotic" handstamp that was used in Pennsylvania.



But Merck and Company also used registration number 1. However they were located in New Jersey.

Jim

*Source: Federal Rules and Regulations, John A. Lapp, B. F. Bowen and Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1918, Article 3, page 434.