Friday, August 27, 2010

Bob Hohertz on 1898 Series Stamped Paper Part 4: Scott RN-X5

Bob Hohertz' series on 1898 stamped paper continues here with examples of Scott RN-X5:

The Scott Specialized listing for X5 is particularly messy. It begins with 1¢ green, unused and used. Since they list tickets later, this presumably refers to non-ticket items. There are three of these.


Figure 19

Figure 19: Freight receipt with a green imprint. The tax on a freight receipt was one cent from July 1, 1898 through June 30, 1902.

Figure 20

Figure 20. Telegram. Telegrams were taxed one cent during the four-year tax period.

Figure 21

Figure 21. Cablegram. Cablegrams were taxed the same way as telegrams.

No telegrams or cablegrams are known used. A copy of a used freight receipt was sold at auction some years ago, but I have not seen it. Also, a peculiar sort of use of these receipts was made in 1905, but I doubt that is what the Specialized means by used.

Figure 22

Figure 22. Receipt used as a menu.  This philatelic curiosity was produced in the city of Chicago, also the headquarters of the Pullman Company.  A member of the Chicago Philatelic Society was probably an employee of the Pullman Company and managed to acquire receipts on which to print the menu.

In the next line, Scott lists “Partial.” This makes no sense in reference to receipts, telegrams or cablegrams, and probably belongs below the next line, which is X5a, Parlor Car ticket.

At least three different kinds of unused non-Pullman parlor car tickets are known. They are quite rare, and the Scott price ($65 in 2008) is not realistic.

Figure 23

Figure 23. The only known Hocking Valley parlor car ticket. These would have been cut into two parts, one of which would have remained with the issuing agent and the other of which would have been collected on the train.

Figure 24

Figure 24. An unused chair car ticket. A chair car was very much like a recliner, and counted as a berth for tax purposes. This ticket also may be unique.

Figure 25

Figure 25. This Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway parlor car “seat check” was issued and trimmed at the left, but not used. I know of one other of these.

Used (non-partial) X5a tickets are perhaps the most common imprinted tickets now available, although they should not exist. All of them should have been collected on the train and destroyed. However, early in the last century a sizeable box of the ones used by the Pere Marquette Railway must have been salvaged. Virtually all of these were used in the early months of 1902.

Figure 26

Figure 26. A Pere Marquette ticket, used in February of 1902.

Figure 27

Figure 27. At least one Chicago and Northwestern simplex ticket stub survived somehow.

There are partial tickets that fall under X5a, which probably prompted the listing just above it.

Figure 28

Figure 28. Four Florida East Coast Railway stubs are known. One or more Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul Railway stubs with green imprints also exist.

X5b covers Pullman tickets. Only unused and partial are covered, but entire used copies also exist.

Figure 29

Figure 29. There are four styles of unused Pullman tickets with green imprints. This is the only currently known two-part multi-station one. They are rarer than X4a unused Pullman tickets, but priced lower.

Although there is no listing for them, used Pullman tickets containing substantially the entire imprint are known.

Figure 30

Figure 30. A used Pullman ticket that probably does not qualify as a “partial.”

There are four basic types of partial Pullman tickets with green imprints.

Figure 31

Figure 31. One of the less common Pullman stubs with green imprints specifies the origin and destination of the trip. It was used in June of 1900. Beginning in the last half of 1901 the imprints were placed on the back of multi-part tickets.

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