State of Ohio Prepaid Sales Tax Receipts

Reserve Lithograph Company (Twelve Cents)

Reserve produced 12 cent receipts for each of the first three major design types.

Dean has identified 10 types with 21 varieties (RE-12c-1 to RE-12c-10B).

Reserve Lithograph Company (Thirty Cents)

Reserve produced 30 cent receipts for each of the first three major design types.

Dean has identified 9 types with 22 varieties (RE-30c-1 to RE-30c-9B).

Reserve Lithograph Company (One Dollar & Fifty Cents)

Reserve produced $1.50 receipts for each of the first three major design types.

Dean has identified 7 types with 13 varieties (RE-$1.50-1A to RE-$1.50-7B).

Reserve Lithograph Company (Fifteen Dollars)

Reserve produced $15 receipts for each of the first three major design types.

Dean has identified 6 types with 10 varieties (RE-$15-1A to RE-$15-6B).

Strobridge Lithograph Company (Six Cents)

Strobridge produced 6 cent receipts for the first major design type.

Dean has identified 2 types with 2 varieties (ST-6c-1 & ST-6c-2).

Superior Printing and Lithograph Company (Two Cents)

Superior produced 2 cent receipts for the first major design type.

Dean has identified 1 type with 1 variety (SU-2c-1).

Superior Printing and Lithograph Company (Fifteen Cents)

Superior produced 15 cent receipts for the first major design type.

Dean has identified 1 type with 1 variety (SU-15c-1).

Superior Printing and Lithograph Company (Sixty Cents)

Superior produced 60 cent receipts for the first major design type.

Dean has identified 1 type with 1 variety (SU-60c-1).

A variety of related memorabilia connects Ohio's sales tax punch cards and stamps to the period during which they were being used. One item of stamp-related memorabilia that I recently acquired is a manufactured dispenser that was used to hold an array of stamps and facilitate removal of the Consumer's Receipts while retaining the Vendor's Receipts/Stubs.  

This dispenser, made of metal plate, was manufactured by Signal-U Manufacturing Company, Canfield, Ohio. It weighs 12.5 ounces and its dimensions are 12-7/16 x 3-5/16 x 1 inches (capable of holding eight books of major design type 1 through 3 stamps).  I don't know if the chain was original equipment or an aftermarket addition by the user to help secure the stamps (recall that these stamps had value -- they were purchased by the vendor in advance of collecting the tax). 

I've been a bit out of touch this last year with so many Family problems, health issues and forced travel.

Now am starting to get back to stamps [for the moment at least] and am looking through some long forgotten threads. This one is just amazing and many thanks to tomiseksj for the effort he has put into it and for the lovely items on show. He already knows my fondness for these Prepaid Sales Tax Receipts and now I will be off to try to find some more.

The 2 below I picked a while ago and have just found them whilst sorting stuff out !

Sometimes It Pays To Ask

Last week, in my quest to expand my Ohio prepaids collection, I came across an ebay auction listing for a lot of 15 pairs. Unfortunately, the only image associated with the lot was of such poor quality that there was no way to tell if I needed any of the stamp.



I contacted the seller to ask if he/she could post additional images that more clearly showed perforation method, printer, and serial number colors (all of which are key in identification) and the seller obliged. The images added to the listing were not great but they were good enough for me to tell that I needed four of the pairs being offered.

The down side of the additional images was that they could bring added competition; however, the seller never changed the primary image so I'm sure many simply passed over the listing without a detailed look.

I won the lot over one other bidder and have confirmed that four of the stamps filled voids in my collection.



One of the four, the Reserve $3, is missing the "land, O." from the printer's imprint -- it isn't listed as a variety in Dean so I've asked Monte to weigh in on how I should categorize it.

Thanks, Michael, I went back to check the others and the first one I looked at was a pair that I needed to replace a consumer receipt (CO-1c-12D).




I'll let you know what I plan to do with the remainder once I've worked through them but it is likely that you already have them.


EDIT 2/22: When it rains it pours! Second pair checked was also needed to replace a consumer receipt (CO-2c-9B).



EDIT 2/23: As luck would have it, 10 of the 15 stamp lot filled holes in the collection! All of the preceding album pages have been updated.

Serial Numbers

The mechanism by which serial numbers were applied to the sheets of OSTS is not known; however, experts believe that this step in the production process was a separate operation after the printing was complete.

Dean writes that there are many known examples which show the exact same control letter and serial number combination on many stamps.

I've just added several sets of 10 sequentially-numbered stamps to my collection where the serial numbers are the same in each set (BKCE2940-BKCE2949). The stamps were printed by Reserve Litho in the 1959-1960 timeframe.

I recently added these three booklets to my collection but didn't notice the anomaly with the 1 cent booklet until after I'd make the purchase.



All of the serialized major design type 1 through 3 booklets that I've seen previously have begun with a number ending in "00" and ended with a serial number ending in "99."

The 1 cent Columbian booklet, however, begins with serial number ^ECI7436 and stamps that follow are intermixed and have serial numbers from the ^ECI7400s and 7500s as well as numbers from the ^BGO7600s, 7800s and 7900s.

There is a pattern to the ordering of the individual stamps which continues throughout the booklet; serial numbers of the first nine stamps are: ^ECI7436, ^BGO7813, ^BGO7602, ^BGO7603, ^ECI7440, ^BGO7817, ^BGO7606, ^BGO7607, ^ECI7444, etc.

The side markings indicate that the booklet was cut and stapled with the stamps in the order in which they currently appear so I'm at a loss to explain how or why this booklet came together the way it did.