1898 Revenues

A broad variety of battleship documentary and proprietary stamps as well as the dollar values from the 1898 tax period featured on John Langlois' 1898 Revenues blog.

According to John, a U.S. citizen, who lives and works in Africa, the stamps were issued by the U.S. government to pay taxes that supported the Spanish-American War.

John says he trys to focus on posts where the date of a cancel matches the day of post. Over time he hopes to create a virtual calendar of the 1898 tax period.

John writes, "Like just about everybody who collects stamps as an adult, I was an avid collector as a child but put my stamps away during my college and early adult years. I then came back to them in middle age. For me the transitions were a bit striking, in that I didn't really reengage in collecting till I returned to the US in 1999 after living for 6 years in Liberia during much of its civil war.

"Once back in the US, I dusted off my collection that I had put away as a teenager, found my Scott's US National Album to be disinteresting, and focused on a stock book I had put away of US revenue stamps. So in late 1999 I began to focus on US revenues."

To visit John's blog, click here.