page_title: Revenue stamps of the United States
section_title: Issues of the 1940s and 1950s
hierarchical_section_title: Revenue stamps of the United States / Issues of the 1940s and 1950s
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of RB Taney revenue stamp, 80-cents, issue of 1940 (Scotts# R299)
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: During the period from 1940 to 1958 the Department of Internal Revenue released several hundred, Documentary, revenue stamps in three basic designs with denominations that ranged from 1-cent to 10,000-dollars and with a variety of different portraits of notable statesmen, each denomination of stamp bearing a different portrait. Almost all of the issues of this period were printed in "carmine" red. The higher denominations of 30-dollars to 10,000-dollars bore a unique serial number as an added security measure. A few reprints from 1917 were also issued during this period.
caption: Taney revenue 80c
  1940 issue
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