I’m slowly wading into the cartons and cartons of acquisitions over the last decade that I’ve never imaged or added to my website, and it occasionally prompts thoughts of “Boy, I can’t recall the last time I saw [item] available for sale anywhere!” This is a prime example.

The tobacco sale tax stamps are not highly valued in Scott as used stamps. The value for a complete used set of RJ1-RJ11 (the entirety of the stamp type) is $37.45. Finding used examples is not difficult.

I have seen exactly four examples of documents with these stamps in the last 15 years. I know, because I bought all of them and would have purchased any others I’d seen… but I haven’t. One example was purchased on eBay in 2015, and the other three all in 2021, two from a seller on eBay and one from Denny Peoples at a show. That’s it. That’s all I’ve seen.

Admittedly, the tax was only in place for a relatively short period of time. Per the Scott Specialized Catalogue:

These stamps were required to pay the tax on the sale of tobacco in excess of quotas set by the Secretary of Agriculture. The tax was 25 per cent of the price for which the excess tobacco was sold. It was intended to affect tobacco harvested after June 28, 1934 and sold before May 1, 1936. The tax was stopped when the Agricultural Adjustment Act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on Jan. 6, 1936.

So basically a year and a half of use.

Still, with as many used stamps available on the market as there are, they should be more findable. Presumably there are small hoards waiting to be unearthed, langushing in old file cabinets in dimly lit basements somewhere… but man… 3.5 years since I last saw one.