Not Quite As Scarce As A Unicorn. But Close!

A lovely unexpected surprise, found in a junk lot I got from Denny Peoples at a 1-day Indiana show last month.

On its face it looks run-of-the-mill... but it most definitely isn't.

(more to come once people have had a chance to guess its significance...)

Mine is a guess. The only unusual thing that I notice is the 4 cent stamp does not have the same puncture holes (?) like the other three stamps. I do notice, however, that there are some holes on the outer edges of the stamp. Was there a change in duty to be paid that caused this?

are the perfins backwards thru the paper?

Nice thing to find. I am sure that I know the answer, so that is all I will say for now.

I don't really collect revenue stamps, but it appears that the 4c stamp is rose pink rather than rose carmine, which given the date (June 20, 1939) would seem to indicate a very early use of this stamp, perhaps even before its issue date (listed as 1940 in my catalog
Problem with this theory is that the overprint is incorrect for the 1940 issue.

It is the 1c stamp, Scott RD1, used on a document. Extremely difficult to find.

Yep. Thanks Eric. For whatever reason, the 1-cent stock transfers and particularly RD1 are very scarce on document. One can look through thousands of these slips (and I have cumulatively) and never see one. Presumably it's because the 1c would only ever been used as a make-up stamp rather than solo, but that doesn't explain why the 2c and 4c are found infinitely more frequently than the 1c. I'm unfamiliar with the rate structures in question, so I don't know how much they may play a part in this scarcity.

It might be good to clarify some terminology around the "holes". There are often two sets of similar holes punched into revenue stamps of this era:

Perfins to ID the owner and protect from theft, misuse, etc., just like with postage stamps.

Punched cancels which do exactly that, they cancel the stamps, often tying them to the document simultaneously.

As an example, here are two images of the front and back sides of a document with revenue stamps on the back.



Back-lighting the two NY state stamps on the back shows the "J&Co" perfin holes of Josephthal & Co. going only through the stamp layer (and only on the stamp); and the two-line "J&Co / +9.16.41" holes of the dated punch cancel going through both the stamp and the document tying the stamps nicely.


Hopefully the revenue collectors will chime-in if I have mis-stated anything here.