Sometimes when I find revenue-related ephemera, I just have to buy it for the “neato” factor.

Item #1. I wish I had seen these when the seller first started listing them, as I might have gotten the complete box intact, but by the time I saw the listing, several pairs of the tins had already been sold. I did, however, did end up with the outer containing box, which no one else got.

These are very fragile. At some point I’ll probably unfold and scan one of the flyers, but it’s not something I want to try and do on the spur of the moment.

Definitely a slice of a bygone age.

Item #2. Those types of things do show occasionally, but very few and far between. Also, when they do, the tendency is for the stamps to be badly mangled, partially scraped off or torn, or removed entirely. Finding 19th-century items with the stamps fully intact is quite difficult.

The only other item I have is the one below, still sealed, and also from eBay. One of the neat aspects about it is that although two stamps are affixed, one has the cancel inverted (it also appears that one of the stamps may be violet paper and the other green paper, so both RB1a and RB1b on the same item).

(and no, I have NO interest in opening the box…)