Insurance Receipts

A receipt is an acknowledgment of monies received. Receipts can be in manuscript format (handwritten) or in printed format. The printed receipt first appeared due to the levying of taxes with later adoption by charities, universities and other commercial enterprises. Soon security devices were added to the receipts to counteract counterfeiting. Rickards states that the earliest British receipts are those for lighthouse dues papers in use in the 17th century and later port dues in use in the 18th century. The 19th century started a proliferation of receipts in all manner of life. Some of the most coveted American receipts includes those involved in whaling and slavery. It is also among the most commonly encountered ephemera. One thing to note about receipts is the utilitarian form. Receipts are not highly decorated, nor do they tend to carry stylized printing. The receipt was a means of putting in writing what one received.

One area of receipt collecting to consider is that of insurance premium receipts. One can find some very early examples and some may be decorative (although the companies tended to save their creativeness for the actual insurance policies).

Also, check out the website for the Museum of History for more examples of receipts and other insurance ephemera.

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Australian Billheads

As promised from by last post, here are some examples of Australian billheads I found on the website Print and Printmaking Australia Asia Pacific . Based on the Australian print collection at the National Gallery of Australia there is free online access to over 22,000 images. The databases can be searched by artist, subject or print techniques such as etching, woodcut, wood-engraving, linocut, lithograph, screenprint, monotype and other print related processes such as posters and artists books. Index to online information on printmakers, print workshops, print publishers, print galleries and public and private collections.

CAPEWELL HORSE NAIL COMPANY

I regularly purchase goods and paper at a local online auction. In December, I noticed that a lot of random estate / household goods also had a small pile of what looked to be calendars. I won the lot and sure enough it included many advertising calendars. Many of those were for the Capewell Horse Nail Company of Hartford Connecticut. These calendars were damaged, but the color and graphics were still very bright. Last week, I happened on a lot of paper through ebay that included a billhead for the company. Attached are photos of all for your enjoyment.

Rubber Goods

The rubber industry in the United States can hardly be said to have had any real and tangible existence until the discovery of the process of vulcanization in 1844 by Charles Goodyear. The first rubber ever imported into this country was brought into Boston in the year 1800 and came in In that same year a patent was granted to one Jacob Hummel, of Philadelphia, for a gum-elastic varnish; of which, however, there seems to have been no further mention. Some ten years later, in 1823, a Boston sea-captain, coming from South American ports, brought with him a pair of gilded rubber shoes which excited the greatest interest. Two years later, 500 pairs of rubber shoes, made by the natives along the Amazon, were brought into Boston, this time without the fantastical refinement of gilding. They were exceedingly thick, clumsy, and unshapely shoes, and yet they sold readily, bringing from $3 to $5 per pair as they were found that they were a secure protection against dampness. This was the e...

THE EPHEMERA OF BUSINESS

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