U.S. Proprietary Die

Faced with bearing the costs of the Civil War, the U.S. government did not over-look the field of proprietary products. They turned to the use of revenue stamps in 1862 for such items as playing cards, matches, patent medicines, and other commodities. At first the Commissioner of Internal Revenue printed these revenue stamps by giving out contracts, but it soon occurred to the manufacturers of these proprietary items that they might use this form of taxation for advertising purposes by having the stamps printed with their own design and trade-mark. Thus this novel public-private partnership was born – and the stamps which have come to be known as “Match & Medicine”.