Commonwealth Of Virginia~notary.

Tried in vain to post on a Revenue thread.
All seemed locked.
Forward to entropy

Can anyone offer information on this one please?

Hello rod222, a quick Google search returns a Virginia Law Register result. Va. Code of 1904 p.2198. Adhesive stamp for a tax of $1.00. I'm on a phone and can't read the full entry.
Hope this helps!!
Edward Hatcher Ould, the notary on the seal, died in 1919.

Cheers Tongman,
Found 1904
Bib: JStor.

This stamp is listed in the SRS State Revenue Catalog as VA D2 with a CV of $100. The face value is $1 although it is not stated. There is a rouletted version listed as D1 and a $1 brown that is smaller as D3.

Goodness me, that was a huge surprise.
I just paid $1.50 for two, if I recall. Just on a whim.
Thank you very much Eric.

They may have been printed in small blocks, as each has a straight edge, and one has two, being a lower left corner.

New word for my Lexicon
Quaere is legal Latin, literally meaning "inquire" or "query". In legal drafting it is usually used to indicate that the person expressing the view that precedes the phrase may not adhere to the hypothesis following it.

Great Buy!

Eric,
as I have 2, I can send you one free gratis, if you you would like to have it in your stock.

Just email me a suitable address.

My apologies for dredging up an old thread. How common or scarce are these still on document (specifically # D2) used with federal documentaries? I'm trying to find examples online to determine some sort of market/retail value, but am coming up empty.

Dan,

I do not have a D1 on document. In my experience they do not come to the philatelic market very often. In fact I do not recall seeing a D1 being offered.

While the SRS catalog says 1904 is the start date for Virginia D2, I have one that is dated March 1902. As it is a proof of death filing, there is no federal stamp. Should there be one? I don't know. In any case if they exist with federal stamps there would have been a very short time period overlapping the federal documentary tax which ended June 30, 1902.

I have two examples of D3 on document from 1924 and 1929. Neither have federal stamps. Again, there may have been joint use with the federal documentary stamps, but I have never seen a joint use. Both of my usages are significantly later than the SRS catalog date of 1920(?). I do not know when the use of the seals ended.

The purpose of these seals was to standardize the notary fees in the state of Virginia. The fee for local notaries was $1 and state officials it was $2. Presumably both used the same seals, but I really do not know.

Many of the 1898 stamp taxes ended in 1901, so the possible usages for both would probably have been very limited by 1902.

Bart,

While it is true that the proprietary uses, other than for wine, were discontinued June 30, 1901, to the best of my knowledge, none of the documentary uses were discontinued as of that date. That would only occur a year later on June 30, 1902.

Au contraire!
I welcome additions to the knowledge, and advancement thereof.
I consider it Philatelic scholarship.

Thank you for your contribution.

Somewhere put away I have the actual laws and the 1901 reduction, if I can ever find them.

I have no knowledge of the topic, but very neat stamp. Intriguing to me as a notary myself. Time to pull out the state revenue catalog I have and look to see if there are similar adhesives from other states...

Alabama had a similar situation in the nineteenth century catalog numbers D1 and D2 in the SRS catalog. I wrote about both the Alabama and Virginia seals in the October 2010 issue of American Stamp Dealer & Collector.

Finally got around to imaging the document I acquired.

After contacting several parties who both deal in and specialize in state revenues, it appears these notary stamps are very scarce on document, and infinitely more so used in conjunction with federal revenues (single-digit population of reported examples).

If anyone else has examples of these Virginia notary adhesives on document, either with or without other revenues affixed, I would appreciate obtaining high-res images. I'm considering compiling a census/reference page for same. There appears to still be considerable uncertainty regarding the exact time period over which which these were used.

Thanks.