Netherland Antilles - Curacao - Possible Revenue

Guessing this is a revenue of some type? Wonder why the upper case F on one and lower case on the second.
Thanks for the help!

"plakzegel" are stamps for duties, usually for documents: stamp duty. You will find these on the first page or inside front cover of a somewhat older passport. But could be attached to any document attracting stamp duty.

There is no good reason for the change between lower or upper case F.

A similar design existed for Curaçao. The harbour scene was changed for the Nederlandse Antillen, at a later stage. These were in use until at least 1987.

Here is a Curaçao one from ebay with the somewhat different design and view of St. Annabaai, the natural harbour of Willemstad on Curaçao.



The Dutch Antilles, originally, were called Curaçao after the main island, or Curaçao and Dependencies. The name was changed to Nederlandse Antillen.

As you can see, this design of Curaçao has the lower case 'f'. My guess is that when the name changed and the design was changed, the lower case 'f' was retained. Already in 1948/1949 (the time when the name changed) the upper case 'F' was introduced.

All pictures I can find have the upper case. The one with the lower case 'f' may have been very shortlived.

An interesting thing is that the left stamp has a stamp 'WINDWARD'. Although we distinguished between the 'bovenwindse', i.e., windward, (Saba, St. Eustatius, St, Maarten) islands and 'benedenwindse', i.e., leeward (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), islands, I cannot imagine any use of the English 'WINDWARD' around 1948. Also, for official use, it just does not make sense to use 'windward islands' when it was applied on one of the 'bovenwindse' islands. They would have used 'Nederlandse Antillen, or the name of the island. So, that stamp, actually ,may have been applied on one of the British Windward Islands. The consulate on one of those islands springs to mind.

Windwardside is a community on Saba.

Jan

It could be. It does raise the question why there is "ST. MA" at the bottom, as that is another island if it is St. Maarten.

Very interesting. Great response and glad I asked.
Paul

If that is St. Maarten in the cancel, it is possible that Windward is part of the company name.

Here is an example of the use of these revenue stamps:




As I understand it, the revenue stamp was needed to make this receipt a legal document.

Jan

A 'plakzegel' is proof of receipt of 'zegelrecht,' i.e., stamp duty. This is levied on financial transactions, but could also be due on official documents ('leges') such as a passport. It had a wide use.

I cannot see how a receipt became a legal document only by paying stamp duty.