One item that fell within this act were photographs. The act stated that sellers of photographs including daguerrotypes, ambrotypes, tin types and carte de visite, affix a stamp to the back of the photographs that were sold.
The tax stamp period began August 1, 1864 and ended August 1, 1866. The act required that in addition to affixing a stamp on back of each photograph, that the seller was to cancel the stamp by initializing and dating it. As you can imagine, knowing this information is quite valuable for the genealogist who may have a photograph like this. Especially if the genealogist does not know the ancestor in the photograph or the time frame in which it was taken.
Now, not every photographer actually initialed or dated the stamp. Many of them simply crossed over the stamp in ink. Or perhaps they initialed it but didn’t date it. Even in that case, you still have a two year time frame in which the picture was taken. That in conjunction with a photographers stamp and city directories within those years might be enough to help you figure out who the ancestor in the photo is. You can also know about how much a particular photograph cost when your ancestor purchase it, based on the color of stamp thereon.
An orange or blue 2 cent stamp indicates that the photograph cost less than 25 cents.
A green 3 cent stamp indicates that the photograph cost 25 to 50 cents.
A red 5 cent stamp (I don’t have a picture for you) indicates that the photo cost 50 cents to $1.00. One 5 cent stamp was added for each additional 50 cents to $1.00 thereafter.
Now above I mentioned using the luxury stamp combined with a photographers stamp and city directory to try to identify the ancestor of interest. A photographer stamp is some sort of identifying mark used by the photographer so that the work could be properly attributed. Here is an example of a photographer’s stamp from one of the back of my photos:
This one gives you the name of the photographer (S.J.Fowler), the address of his studio which might have even been where he lived at that time (77 Genesee Street) and then the city and state (Auburn, N.Y.)
Most photographers stamps give the same information. Sometimes less, sometimes a little more but they nearly always mention a city. And the ancestor in the photograph most likely lived within or near the photographer’s city of practice. Hopefully the cities in that area will have a directory of residents for your years of interest which you can then check in trying to determine who the ancestor in the photograph is.
The photographers stamp and luxury tax stamp may be overlooked genealogically at first, but once utilized can lead to big genealogical discoveries.
