page_title: Revenue stamps of the United States
section_title: Third issue
hierarchical_section_title: Revenue stamps of the United States / History of revenue stamp usage / Third issue
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of Washington revenue stamp, $3, issue of 1871 (Scott # R147) Cancel Date: September 19, 1872 Cancel Type: Merchant Company: Worster, Dupee &amp; Co. City: Boston
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: Because the second issue of revenue stamps were all printed in the same blue and black colors they were often difficult to distinguish at a glance by Internal Revenue employees. Subsequently, a third issue of stamps with similar designs and some variations as the second issue but with distinctive colors assigned to the various denominations was released between 1871 and 1872. Production of the third issue employed  many of the same printing plates, engraved by J.R. Carpenter of Philadelphia, and were printed on the same special  "chameleon" paper with silk fibers used in the  printing of the second issue, with perf' 12 perforations. Unlike many of the stamps in the second issue, the third issue does not designate any duty type in the stamp designs. Double transfers and inverted centers occur in nearly all the different denomination designs.
  By 1875 the Internal Revenue awarded the contract to print for revenue stamps to the National Bank Note Company who prepared a second  series of proprietary stamps. The new revenue stamps are commonly referred to as the "second proprietary issue," and occur in 1-cent, 2-cent, 3-cent, 4-cent, 5-cent, and 6-cent denominations. Use of revenue stamps to pay proprietary taxes ended on July 1, 1883.
caption: Washington revenue, $3
  1871 issue
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