Stamporama Discussions: 1917 War Tax Revenue stamps

United States/BOB & Other : 1917 War Tax Revenue stamps

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larsdog

APS #220693 ATA#57179
24 Jan 2014
10:01:43pm

A war tax was created in 1917 that included capital stock sales and promissory notes, among other things. An interesting item that was also included was "revenue stamps also will have to be affixed to parcel post package on which the postage amounts to 25 cents or more." (New York Times, November 29, 1917). It was clear that postage would be paid with normal postage stamps and the tax would be paid by revenue stamps and cancelled by the sender. The sender was to add their initials and the date in ink on the revenue stamp for cancellation, but the postage stamps were to be cancelled by the Post Office. Even though the act called for slits to be cut in a revenue stamp of 10 cents or more, Post Office Department Bulletin dated December 4, 1917 states: "The slitting with a knife or other instrument of tax stamps on parcel-post mail is not required." That same bulletin also directs that "only the postage chargeable thereon is considered; the fees paid for special delivery and insurance ... shall not be counted."

I went searching for an example on eBay and found this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Grip-Nut-Company-Illustrated-1918-P-Post-Tag-w-PP-Tax-Revenue-Whitley-IN-to-NYC-/350585690255?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51a089188f

I'm not going to buy it, but it seems like an interesting example to analyze.

I have been reading the section on this very topic in Beecher and Wawrukiewicz, and their examples come from the Daniel Pagter Collection. As a side note, I swapped stamps with Dan back in 2005 when I was just getting started in serious collecting. I had no idea who he was and he was just as nice as he could be! I feel like a math major that just found out his middle school tutor was Albert Einstein! Back to the example at hand:

The first thing I noticed was that it has insurance for $100, which was 25 cents at the time of mailing. I see 31c written on the tag in manuscript, but that makes no sense since there is only 46c in postage. It was postmarked in Indiana, so this Chicago company apparently found a post office in Indiana that was in Zone 4 from New York. (Chicago to New York was Zone 5). I wonder if they found it cheaper to truck everything going to New York to this Indiana PO, and if they shopped around to find the closest PO to CLAIM they were Zone 4 from New York. In other words, would a Postmaster have an incentive to fudge a bit to increase revenue through his post office? Interesting sidebar. Anyway, Zone 4 postage was 7c for first pound and 4c each additional in April 1918. 7 pounds would be 31c postage for a total of 56c. Looking at the postmarks more closely, it appears that a stamp is missing at the bottom of the tag, likely a 10c stamp. So this tag was PROBABLY properly franked with 31c postage and 25c insurance and properly taxed on the 31c, but one of the 10c stamps is no longer on the tag.

Interesting.

Does anyone have a similar example? RevStampMan?

Lars

"Expanding your knowledge faster than your collection can save you a few bucks."