page_title: Revenue stamps of the United States
section_title: Alcohol revenue stamps
hierarchical_section_title: Revenue stamps of the United States / History of revenue stamp usage / Alcohol revenue stamps
caption_attribution_description: English: image of US Treasury beer tax stamp, 12 ½ c
context_page_description: The first revenue stamps in the United States were used briefly during colonial times, among the most notable usage involved the Stamp Act. Long after independence, the first revenue stamps printed by the United States government were issued in the midst of the American Civil War, prompted by the urgent need to raise revenue to pay for the great costs it incurred. After the war ended however, revenue stamps and the taxes they represented still continued. Revenue stamps served to pay tax duties on items that came under two main categories, Proprietary and Documentary. Proprietary stamps paid tax duties on goods like alcohol and tobacco, and were also used for various services, while Documentary stamps paid duties on legal documents, mortgage deeds, stocks and a fair number of other legal dealings. Proprietary and Documentary stamps often bore these respective designations, while in several of the issues they shared the same designs, sometimes with minor variations. Beginning in 1862 the first revenue stamps were issued, and would continue to be used for another hundred years and more.
context_section_description: Taxes were commonly levied on alcohol and tobacco products and a variety of such stamps were printed for this purpose. Typically, the stamp would be affixed to a given product when the taxes were paid in such a way as to seal a given container, where upon opening, the stamp would be damaged. For example, revenue stamps for beer tax were issued to brewers in sheet form, where an individual stamp was cut from it and used as a seal over the opening in a barrel of beer. To access the beer the stamp would have to be punctured, thus prohibiting its reuse.
caption: Jackson Beer stamp, 12½-cents
  1871 issue
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