Part Of A Cool Collection

Part of the HUGE early postcard collection I've been researching with all your help (thanks), were items like this. The fairly early IRS items are neat, being just a few short years after the IRS was established. The pre-printed revenue bank note is also quite cool. Any information on these is most welcome.

That is not a "bank note". It is a check; from 1862 to 1883 there was a 2 cent tax on checks regardless of the amount of the check. That was one of many taxes created or increased to help pay for the Civil War. The document with the 50 cent is a promissory note, which had a different tax rate.

"The pre-printed revenue bank note" is known as "revenue stamped paper" and is listed in the middle of the Scott Specialized catalog. I'll leave it to one of our many revenue experts to say which one it is. Sometimes the printed stamp is very common, but the check itself might be more popular for its illustration or for a seldom seen bank.

The blue 50c and small (2c?) red are known as "on document". Again, sometimes the printed stamp is very common, but either the particular usage is better or the document may have good eye appeal.

The 2 envelopes with the Pleasant Valley Wine Co illustrations on them are known as "advertising covers". Unfortunately the 1st is missing its stamp and the 2nd was badly torn open, significantly lowering their value, but sill not worthless. In the case of the 2nd, the stamp on cover is of minimal value, but the illustration holds the value The bigger/more elaborate the illustration the better, and certain topics are more popular than others. Wine should be better (guns are real popular).

The 1st item you show might be a "folded letter" (aka folded letter sheet). I can't quite tell as the image is small and it looks like some of the printing on back is showing thru o the front.

Appears to be RN-D1.

There are also some nice battleship proprietary stamps with printed cancels used by Pleasant Valley Wine Co. Also a check with a 2¢ battleship documentary stamp. I will scan and post later.

Yes, I believe the inside of the folded letter in the first picture is the IRS collection letter that is shown in the last picture.

From the two missing pieces, of course you are correct. Duh to me.

"There are also some nice battleship proprietary stamps with printed cancels used by Pleasant Valley Wine Co."

I most likely have some.....yes, post examples.

Yes, the IRS page is in fact a "folded letter". There are a few in this collection.

Here is an image of a slightly later period bank check during the Spanish-American era with a 2¢ battleship documentary stamp paying the tax on bank checks.

Can Anyone identify this postmark? I thought it read "Colesby CA" but no such PO shows up in the database. I then tried "Oclesby CA" and nothing. Then I tried just Colesby and Oclesby in the US search and still nothing. Any clues?

Oglesby, now Ogilby.

Thanks NSK!

Re: Oglesby/Ogilby
This is a case where "LES" is better, pun intended. Jim Forte's list has the option to "string search". From the California list, do a string search on just the part you can read, "LES", which returns a short list whcih can be manually scanned. Oglesby is there but lists a range of 1880-1880, which does not fit your 1894 cancel. This is problematic, but NSK provides a new direction to Ogilby, which Forte lists with 3 different periods of operation incuding one for 1890-95. I am not a collector of California postal history, but it gives the appearance of having the old 1880-issued device still handy and the new postmaster using it instead of ordering a replacement device.

Forte's 1907 change is interesting. The Postal Bulletin #3414 dated October 3, 1907 has the following announcment:

These are available at:
http://www.uspostalbulletins.com/Home.aspx

To go further down the rabbit hole, here are two maps. The first from 1902 showing the larger San Diego County. Ogilby is to the bottom right corner just above Yuma ("Twentieth Century Atlas of the Commercial, Geographical, and Historical World", 1902, by J. Martin Miller.).

And the second from 1920 showing the split between San DIego and Imperial Counties ("Leslie's New World Atlas", 1920 Edition, Lesie-Judge Publishers, New York City, which is an incredibly useful atlas for the detail of small town locations).

John, I did go to Forte's list and saw the two categories. So cool it's a ghost town now. I'm wondering if ghost towns are in a collector group in itself? I'm guessing maybe...