US Revenue Stamps
In Postal History, Every Stamp Tells a Story
By Maribeth Keane — I have a stamp collection, but I don’t consider myself a collector. I have a collection of my initials on stamps from Great Britain. I’ve been collecting those for a long time, but I’m a dealer and a consultant for postal history more than a stamp collector. My interest started with boy scouts when I was 12 years old. I needed a couple of merit badges to complete my eagle scout, so I borrowed some of my sister’s stamp collection and mounted them because I thought it would be an easy...
Stamp Collector Bob Allen on Stamp Design and Production Techniques
By Maribeth Keane — Like many collectors, I collected when I was a child, and then I became interested again in the ‘90s. I think eBay and other Internet auction sales had a little bit to do with it. I just started playing with stamps and got interested again. Living in Hawaii, you don’t have the option of going to dealers all around the country, and a lot of the bigger ones are on the East Coast. There are a couple of stamp dealers in Hawaii, but not that many. Collectors Weekly: Do you specialize in specific...
Panaceas of the Sixties Had Their Own Revenue Stamps
By James Brush Hatcher — Ring's Vegetable Ambrosia, a hair restorative concocted by a New Hampshire dentist, was one of the many patent medicine preparations which helped pay for the Civil War by wearing on its package a nicely engraved, circular revenue stamp picturing the bearded dentist. It was a tax like the one you are now paying on your favorite talcum powder or lipstick to help defray the terrific cost of the current global skirmish. Revenue stamps, issued under the Revenue Act of 1862, produced in the...