Scalped Tickets

[smotan_02]

Members,
Im writing a football article and within that article I discuss the rise of ticket scalping. One of the aspects I've found is that "legitimate ticket sale agencies" were expected to stamp the tickets if they sold them for higher than face value. This stamp would be a government style stamp.

Here is from a 1936 NYT article:
"Walter J. Rothensies, Collector of Internal Revenue, said that ticket agencies and individuals who sell tickets at higher than face value must have a license from the department and are required to stamp a record of the resale on the ticket."

I doubt that scalpers would actually do this, but I was curious if anyone had any tickets with an example of this stamp? It may have language relating to the "Internal Revenue Service" on the stamp. Would really help to see a picture of this. Please post or send me a PM

Thank you

[ooo-ribay]

interesting....

[smotan_02]

Here is a excerpt from the book "Ticket Scalping"

"More than 100 people holding tickets were turned away from Philadelphia's Shibe Park on October 11, 1929, after they showed up for a World Series Game between the Athletics and Chicago Cubs. Entrance was refused because their tickets had passed through the hands of speculators. It was a situation that resulted because the tickets carried a stamp mark that government agents had compelled speculators to affix showing the original and resale price so that the tax could be collected by the IRS and because the Shibe brothers made good on an earlier promise that they would not honor scalper's tickets."

[WillowGrove]

Originally Posted by ooo-ribay

interesting....

+1

[Republicaninmass]

Stubhub

[smotan_02]

So the summation of all the responses is currently:
"Interesting....+1 Stubhub"

[steve B]

I've never heard of that.

I don't think it would mention the taxing agency, usually that sort of stamp has to include a specific amount of tax or state tax paid which is a specific amount.
Perhaps the stamp also had to include the name of the reseller? In that case the stubs or tickets would probably have been turned over to the IRS.

But there are literally thousands of different sorts of tax stamps, and I haven't collected them all that seriously.

A couple places to check
One of the biggest revenue stamp dealers.
http://www.ericjackson.com/rhome1c.asp

The US organization for revenue stamp collectors. (I'm not a member yet)
http://www.revenuer.org/

Steve B