Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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Duke
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Duke »

Interestingly, I found out, that (at least for me), concave/convex uncertainty collapses for all photos, if I move sight from the bottom upwards the image, instead of natural up to down.
I bet this effect comes from the circumstance, that naturally for human perception, light falls from up (sky, ceiling lights) to bottom, so, a convex object, say, a ball, would appear bright on the top, and dark on the bottom, while a concave object, such as inner surface of hemisphere, will appear seemingly, other way around, but not quite so. The light-shadow play on such subjects would not be the same, and if you just rotate the image of a ball 180 degrees around, the brain will immediately recognize foul play, and adjust perception adequately. However, it may have trouble with more complicated shapes, may take some time for it to estimate, if the shadow distribution corresponds to the perceived shape.
“Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science.” - JCM

Iainp
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

I bought this 1808 Canterbury prerogative court document just because it seemed the escutcheon was special, and so it turns out to be, in fact it's my best find to date.
The document is quite special too, as it has the Archbishop of Canterbury's seal on it, and also because it has the rare high values of £50 & £25 duty stamps.

£75 was a lot of money in 1808. I looked up the estimated buying power in today's money, and got 2 very different answers from 2 sites. One said it was around £3500, the other said around £6,700. Anyway, it equates, according to the first site, to 500 days' wages for a skilled tradesman at that time.

Canterbury prerogative court document 1808
Canterbury prerogative court document 1808

The stamps and seal are not in good condition:

£50 Duty stamp, 1808
£50 Duty stamp, 1808
Canterbury seal 1808
Canterbury seal 1808

But as I say, I was buying for the escutcheon, and what a beauty it is. The harp and the mermaid figurehead are perfectly centred, and the metal is clean, virtually unblemished and shiny. Luckily it's an unusually large escutcheon too, measuring 6.3mm x 7.4mm.

This is a 2 pane composite of a total of 150 focus stacked images in Zerene

£50 Duty stamp, escutcheon 1808
£50 Duty stamp, escutcheon 1808

The outside diameter of the bottom sound-hole on the harp is just 0.44mm, and the average diameter of the individual scales on the mermaid is just 0.15mm. I haven't searched, but I bet this is the first time that images of mermaid scales have featured on this forum :)
The detail at the bottom in the partial buckle on the garter is superb too.

£50 Duty stamp, detail in escutcheon 1808
£50 Duty stamp, detail in escutcheon 1808

And yes it looks good rotated too!

escutcheon 1808 rotated
escutcheon 1808 rotated

Iainp
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

Today's escutcheon is really not very pretty at all, and it quite poor condition, but it's on a document dated 1727, so that's hardly surprising.
Until 1757, each time the Duty was increased, the law required that it was shown on a different embossed stamp. The three 6d stamps here, then, represent the original duty of 6d and the 2 increases up to 1727, making a duty of 18d payable in total.


1727 vellum document
1727 vellum document

6d embossed stamp 1727
6d embossed stamp 1727

The escutcheon is rubbed and tarnished, but still shows some good detail of the Tudor Rose:


Tudor Rose on 1727 escutcheon
Tudor Rose on 1727 escutcheon

Iainp
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

The majority of the early embossed duty stamps are on blue paper but vermilion coloured paper was used for the stamps on court documents.
This is a Die C #1 (Barber) example. These were used on writs from 22nd July 1762 to 27th March 1789.

There are 4 values of VI pence around the edge of the stamp, making a total of 2 shillings. The cypher stamp on the back helps restrict the possible date range to the late 1760s to early / mid 1770s.

2 shilling vermilion embossed stamp
2 shilling vermilion embossed stamp

The escutcheon, measuring 4.1mm x 6.2mm, has some unusual scroll detail on it and a partial letter 'I' in the corner.

Escutcheon on vermilion embossed stamp
Escutcheon on vermilion embossed stamp

Bob-O-Rama
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Bob-O-Rama »

I am thoroughly enjoying all of this as a collector of old books / stuff and photography, I probably would have paid more attention in colonial history classes had the stamp act / intolerable acts been contextualized with examples of the stamps.

-- Bob

Iainp
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

Thanks Bob. Yes, as I was saying recently to an old classmate from 40 years ago, our teachers made History into the most boring subjects imaginable. Now, decades later, I realise it's one of the most fascinating.
Iain

Iainp
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

Here's another vermilion stamp, used on writs; this time a 5 shillings die D (Barber #9) used from 18th August 1804 and last seen in use 2nd February 1830. The King George III cypher stamp on the back is a Plate 2, 1st recut, which further narrows down the date range to 1805-1815.

5 shilling die D embossed vermilion stamp 1804
5 shilling die D embossed vermilion stamp 1804

At the risk of complicating things, in the lower right of the escutcheon is part of the inescutcheon, which is the term for a small shield placed within a larger one.

escutcheon on 5 shilling die D embossed vermilion stamp
escutcheon on 5 shilling die D embossed vermilion stamp

As with a previous stamp, there's evidence of creatures, now long gone I hope, who made their home in the slit of the stamp, and on the metal surface itself.


escutcheon detail
escutcheon detail
escutcheon detail
escutcheon detail

Iainp
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

The escutcheons on the stamps from Queen Victoria's reign don't show as much fine detail as the earlier ones, but this one dated 3rd July 1862 has come out quite well.
It's a 2 shilling 6 pence, #11 (Barber) . Die L.

2 shilling 6 pence, #11. Die L
2 shilling 6 pence, #11. Die L

2 shilling 6 pence escutcheon
2 shilling 6 pence escutcheon

escutcheon detail
escutcheon detail

The rotated flower refuses, to my eye, to appear anything other than concave, despite much effort!

escutcheon flower detail rotated
escutcheon flower detail rotated

rjlittlefield
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by rjlittlefield »

Huh!

The rotated flower was stubbornly concave for me also, three days ago.

But when I come back just now, it pops right in as convex, lit from below.

I do not know what made the difference. "Power of suggestion", maybe?

--Rik

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