Very Interesting US Bob Auction Item

I just ran into this auction lot and find it very interesting in a few ways:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/ite...-box-and-can

The first thing I noticed, of course, is the name and logo. No need to go into that, as it is a plain and simple fact that the symbol has been used in one form or another for many centuries by many countries.

SECOND, is the USIR Alcohol tax stamp.

THIRD is the Railway Express label.

The WARNING label is no slouch, either.

Am I the only one who finds this item rather fascinating???

That there is some good stuff!

Quite interesting in several different respects, and it looks to be in great shape.
Wow.

Interesting that a package like that was never opened! Notice the listing claims the alcohol seems to have evaporated. Air-tight isn't always air tight I guess!

See: https://mallstuffs.com/Blogs/BlogDe...l%20industry for details about Peoria Brewer's use of the symbol. Scroll down nine images and it follows. The link discusses the symbol in pharma industry and consumer products in the USA.

Also discussed are the companies from the city in Ontario, Canada founded in 1908 by the name of Swastika which still exists today.

Yes, this is a fantastic item of "dimensional philately" for the USIR Revenue stamp collector. "Dimensional philately" was a term coined by a dealer (Kirk's of Clipper Mills, Ca., or Ausdenmoore-McFarlane of Michigan) to describe a WWII WWI German Helmet mailed back to the USA with postage affixed to and the address written directly on the outside of the helmet. It had a price and was stored on top the shelves at the various shows.

Edit: Right helmet, wrong war. See link posted below as that is the helmet. Thanks rogdcam.

Back to the topic of alcohol containers and their tax stamps.




I do too! No need to be afraid of 3-D philatelic or fiscal material. For the record, here is the description and photos from this lot for when the link in the original post does not work:









It was interesting to see an intact shipping box to show the outer sealing method. I have a similar box, which has been opened. The date on my box is 1-8-1934. As I will define it, here is the front view:


The left and front panels:


The right and back panels (front and back panels look alike):


The bottom half of the left panel showing taxpaid stamp:


Close-up of the taxpaid stamp:


The opened box showing the metal can inside:


Detail of the cap and spout:


Detail of the underside of cap showing what appears to be only a thin waxed paperboard liner, which would easily let the contents wick-out in 90 years:


On the topic of bulk alcohol containers, here is a larger Rossville brand can dated April 12, 1933 containing 3.80 proof gallons. It is 10" high and 8.5" in diameter. Note the collapsible spout, which I extended. Three views as the can is rotated:




Close-up of the taxpaid stamp (1 gallon + coupons at the top for the balance) and the contents panel:


Rossville even had cinderella labels, in sheet and coil (or booklet?) formats:

Thank you, John for the great photos, and inclusion of some of your 3-D material! How neat that the Rossville Grain Alcohol container is from your neck of the woods (perhaps from a estate or company sale?).

Are they selling these things to singles ONLY (i.e., already divorced, separated, widowed, or confirmed bachelor)?

These are all industrial strength 190 proof alcohol.

Neat photos! I wonder, how/when did they cancel the stamps? It seems like well before being affixed to the packages/items BUT did the USIR do it, or the end-user?

In that era there were storekeeper-gaugers on site. The are the ones who had the booklets in which the stamps were placed and cut the tabs to fit the number of proof gallons. It was the proof gallons that determined the amount of the tax. Proof gallons are different from what we think of gallons. A gallon of 190 proof alcohol is 1.9 proof gallons as we see in some of the above illustrations.

I had never seen these before. Thank you for showing them. How do you store or display them?

revenuermd - I was referring to the black(ink) cancels, but now I see what you were referring to... the large blue stamp with bits cut off. There must have been a lot of trust involved back then, unless it was someone else's job to confirm the merchant did things properly?

The black ink cancels were done by the Internal Revenue storekeeper-gaugers. Somewhere I have one of the stencils that was used to put the five wavy line cancels over the stamp tying it to the container. The five wavy lines were part of the nineteenth century law (not regulations, but the statutes enacted by Congress).

I think maybe I am confused about the "Internal Revenue storekeeper-gaugers"... is that a person or a thing?

;-)

In 1868 there was a person with the title Storekeeper and a person with the title Guager, both employees of Internal Revenue. They worked at distilleries and supervised what was going on there. Later they combined these two titles for a single person, but still on site of every distillery.