While working on this website, I came across this playing card tax stamp for sale being described as a Caleb Bartlett cancellation........
If it was true, it would be a nice ephemera addition to my card collection. Once you read his story you will learn that it was not possible. The seller obviously made an assumption based on their lack of research to get more money for the stamp. The initials belong to whoever was using the stamp to pay the tax an item in 1863.
First Issue Playing Card revenue stamps (1862-71) were used for all sorts of items. True, the stamps were intended for use only on playing cards, but that changed on December 25th 1862 when the Revenue Act was amended. It stated "That no instrument, document, writing, or paper of any description, required by law to be stamped, shall be deemed or held invalid and of no effect for the want of the particular kind or description of stamp designated for and denoting the duty charged on any such instrument, document, writing, or paper, provided a legal stamp, or stamps, denoting a duty of equal amount, shall have been duly affixed and used thereon."
The stamps then appeared legally on items such as these.......