Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket!

Well... not exactly, but a ticket nonetheless.

This is one of the most unusual items I've seen several years. I know I ended up overpaying for it, but it falls under that category of "when will you ever see another one?" I've certainly never seen one before... and may not again.

It is a Civil War-era photo (Carte de Visite or CDV) depicting the grand prize in a raffle, with the CDV also acting as a raffle ticket.

So what exactly is the revenue stamp paying the tax on?

1. It's not the lottery ticket tax, as that tax was repealed in July of 1864.

2. It falls within the 2-year period that CDVs were taxed. One could make the assumption that it is de facto this option, however the cancel initials are not that of the photographer, as would be expected. Also, photographers would frequently gang-affix revenue stamps and pay tax in batches rather than affix revenue stamps on every individual item.

So my guess is:

3. Because the initials and hand of the cancel match that writing the ticket number and name on the ticket, this is presumably either the person running the raffle or the purchaser of the ticket, paying tax on the $1 ticket cost.

I could easily be mistaken in my interpretation, so I'd be interested in reading other opinions.

Regardless of which tax the stamp is paying, it is an incredibly esoteric item.

It has to be the photo tax, it's the only tax applicable at the time. And lottery tickets had a 50 cent tax in any case. I don't think you overpaid, however. Lets see how long it takes to find another example.

So there was no tax due on the $1 payment for the ticket itself? It doesn't make sense to me that a third party party would be paying the photographer's tax. Unless for some reason the raffle tickets were sold out of the photographer's studio and the tax paid one at a time as individual raffle tickets were sold.

It is unusual for another reason. The locomotive appears to be a model, as it is on a stand and the wheels are not flanged. If so, this would be one of the earliest model railroad raffles or sales ever recorded and would interest historians of that hobby. The $300 number is puzzling me, though. Is that the retail value of the prize? It seems very high. Is the model shown a stand-in for the real prize?

It must have been the model value since my research shows that locomotives in 1865 cost around $16,000.

https://books.google.com/books?id=5...cost&f=false

Yes, but in 1865 a $300 "model train" would be equivalent in today's currency $4,500. No way that "model" would cost that much, unless it was made of solid gold.
I think you're ignoring the 00 after the 300. There is no decimal. The spacing is "unusual", but not crazy. So I think it's suggesting the engine is $30,000. Which is more in line with what was mentioned for the cost of an engine. (More reasonably than $4,500 for a model).

The revenue stamp IS for the photo. Notice that the ticket, the photo is applied to it. It's not printed on it. And in 1865, there was a tax on photographs.

Classic - I completely disagree. The odd item out of the group would be a $30,000 locomotive. No, it was a model. Besides, they would have had to sell well over 30,000 raffle tickets. No, I do not see them having a choice between jewelry, a revolver or a locomotive. It is nonsensical.

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The price is written as "300 00"; as the three following prices are clearly aligned (ones column, tens column, etc), I think we need to figure out why the price is U$D 300.

A working desktop-scale model is out of the question, but would a static model with a zillion small moving parts not cost a small fortune?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

The stamp was probably signed when the ticket owner signed the ticket. As long as he had the pen in his hand, he signed the stamp too. The govt didn't really care who signed the stamp as long as someone did.

My vote for the train is that it is a "live steam learning toy" from Great Britain. They were heavy and expensive according to this article.

https://www. (20140417) Site Not Allowed .com/model-trains/steam

The link is disallowed but suffice it to say that the information and the pictured item match up well.

I would guess that it was a model relating to the 1865 Lincoln Funeral train
Don

The funeral train carrying the body of President Abraham Lincoln from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Ill., made a stop in Joliet on May 2, 1865

There was a General Grant Funeral Train, also, which was very similar to the Lincoln one when Grant died. So, the cover in question probably was his, not Lincoln's.

Grant died in 1885. The raffle was in 1865 so probably not a grant funeral train.

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People decry the state of American politics today, but in 1856 we had fisticuffs on the floor of the US Senate, to wit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...ed_in_office

An anticipatory mock funeral train, OTOH, would be protected speech.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Great job finding that Ken! The model is pretty close to it in appearance. The stack and some other details are different.