A History of Stamp Duty on Playing Cards#
The accidental shooting in Southsea was unfortunate, no doubt, and provides an opportunity for black comedy around the naming of the Ace of Spades as the death card. But we can also build a far darker tale, where the Ace of Spades might, quite literally, be described as a first class ticket to a death sentence.
So let us set the scene with a historical review of how duty came to be levied on playing cards, way back in the early seventeen hundreds, and the reign of Queen Anne, when a duty was laid on each pack of playing cards, and when a mandatory death sentence applied to anyone who forged the official duty seal, stamp or mark.
Not surprisingly, the imposition of such a tax hotly contested by those whose trade would be subjected to it.
A history of duties on playing cards, 1879
https://archive.org/details/cardessaysclaysd00caveuoft/page/84/mode/2up Card essays, Clay’s decisions, and card-table talk, by “Cavendish”, pseud, 1879
pp85-93 (pp85-102)
DUTIES ON PLAYING-CARDS.
” It is quite right that there should be a heavy duty on Cards.” — SOUTHEY.
That Playing-Cards, being articles of luxury, are fit objects for the imposition of a duty, is a proposition which can hardly be denied. But what the amount of the duty should be is by no means clear. A high duty checks production, diminishes consumption, and leads to evasion. Experience renders it probable that the present duty of 3d. a pack is about as high a one as can be borne, without defeating its own object, as will appear from the following historical sketch.
A tax was first levied on playing-cards in the reign of James I. (1615). In the “Calendar of State Papers,” Domestic Series, A.D. 1611-1618, is the following minute: — “1615, July 20, Westminster. — (19). Letters Patent granting to Sir Richard Coningsby, for a rent of £200 per annum, the imposition of 5s. per gross on playing-cards, and the office of Inspector of all playing-cards imported in recompense of £1,800 due to him by the King, and of his patent for the sole export of Tin, granted by the late Queen.” Warrant for the above granted July 19.
The proclamation of this patent is preserved in the library of the Society of Antiquaries ; and following the proclamation is “The Copie of the Lord Treasourer’s Letter,” as under: — “After my heartie commendations, whereby it hath pleased his Majestie to direct a Privy Seal to me, touching the imposition of five shillings upon every grosse of Playing Cards that shall be Imported into this Kingdome or the Dominions thereof by vertue of his Majestie’s Letters Patents granted to Sir Richard Coningsby knight under the Great Scale of England. In regard whereof These are to wil and require you to take notice thereof and not to suffer any merchant to make any entry of Playing-Cards until the same impositions be payed according to the same Letters patents Provided that the Patentees give caution for maintayning the Custome and Import according to a Medium thereof to be made as in such cases is used: And so having signified his Majestie’s pleasure to you in that behalfe I bid you heartily farewell.
“Your loving Friend,
“Tho. SUFFOLKE.
“From Northampton House the 29th of October, 1615.”
The date usually taken, probably on the authority of Singer, for the original taxing of cards is 1631. It may be that he confused between the imposition of the tax, and the protest made against it in the reign of Charles I. The duty on cards was one of the taxes then complained of by the Commons “as arbitrary and illegal, and being levied without consent of Parliament.”
In the reign of Queen Anne playing-cards were first subjected to a duty with the consent of Parliament. In 1710 an act was passed to obtain an annual sum of £186,670 as a fund or security for raising a sum of £2,602,200, ” for carrying on the war, and for other her Majesty’s Occasions.” It was enacted that playing-cards should pay a duty of sixpence a pack for a term of thirty-two years, commencing June 11, 1711. Under the act, all makers of cards or dice were required to send to the Commissioners of the Stamp Duties on Vellum, parchment, and paper, notice in writing containing the address of the house or place where cards or dice were manufactured. Makers omitting to send such notice, or manufacturing in houses not notified, became liable to a penalty of £50. Various other vexatious obligations were imposed, as, for example, the makers had to permit the proper officers for the duties in question to enter their houses of business to ” take an account of the cards and dice there made,” on penalty of £10 for every refusal. The makers were not allowed to remove cards from the factory until the paper and thread enclosing every pack was sealed in such a manner as was satisfactory to the Commissioners of Duties, under pain of forfeiting the goods removed, and treble their value. In addition, the card and dice makers were required to make entry, upon oath, once in every twenty-eight days of the number of cards and dice manufactured by them in the interim, and they had to clear within the ensuing fortnight the amount of duty then declared due. Neglect on these scores was visited by forfeiture of £20 for default in making entry, and double duty for non-payment of the tax within the specified time.
The proposal to lay an impost on playing-cards encountered much opposition. Several petitions against the tax were presented to Parliament, by card-makers and importers of paper, which are sufficiently interesting to be quoted at some length : —
“Considerations in Relation to THE IMPOSITION ON CARDS, Humbly submitted to the Honourable HOUSE of Commons : —
Nine parts in ten of the cards now made are sold from 6s. to 24s. per gross, and even these six shillings in cards by this Duty are subjected to pay £3 12s. tax.
This with humble submission will destroy Nine Parts in Ten of this manufacture for those Cards which are now bought for 3s., can’t then be afforded under 10d. or a shilling, for every hand through which they pass will add a gain in consideration of the Tax imposed and therefore the generality of the people will buy none at all.
” If any of your Honours hope by this Tax to suppress expensive Card-playing, It is answered, That the Common sort who play for innocent diversion will by this tax be only hinder’d ; for those sharp gamesters who play for money but do not use the Twentieth part of the Cards sold, will not by this Tax be discouraged ; for those who play for many Pounds at a game will not be hindered by paying 12d. per pack : And the destruction of this manufacture will be attended with these ill consequences : —
” First. Nothing (in comparison) will be (clear of all charges) raised by this duty imposed.
” Secondly. All that depend upon this manufacture will be rendered incapable to maintain their numerous families or pay their debts.
” Thirdly. The English paper manufacture (which is the middle of the Cards) will be extreamly prejudiced.
” Fourthly. The importation of the Genoa White Paper (with which the Cards are covered) will be very much diminished ; and in the consequence thereof,
” Fifthly and lastly. Her Majesty will lose as much Paper duty as the clear Duty on the Cards to be sold will amount unto.
” And if it be intended to charge the Stock in hand, then the present Possessors will be thereby obliged to pay a Duty for Ten times more Cards than ever they will sell.
” Wherefore it is humbly hoped, That your Honours will not lay a Duty which it’s humbly conceived will bring no profit to the QUEEN, but inevitably ruin many hundreds of her subjects “
The merchants importing Genoa paper and others followed suit in a similar strain:—
“The case of the Merchants Importing Genoa paper, the Stationers, Haberdashers of small ware, the English Paper-makers, and Card-makers.
“In relation to the Intended Duty on Cards, humbly submitted to the Honourable House of Commons.”
The preamble with slight alterations proceeds as in the previous petition down to the end of the first “ill consequences,” and then the petition continues as follows :—
“Secondly. The English Paper-Manufacture extremly prejudiced, because by a modest computation there are 150 Paper Mills in England and each of these one with another Annually make 400 Rheams ; one-Fourth of which is now used in the ordinary cards, and none of these will (when this great Duty is imposed) be ever made.
” Thirdly. Her Majesty’s Customs arising from the Importation of Genoa Paper will be extremely lessen’d: for it is reasonably supposed that there are 40,000 Rheams of Genoa paper annually used in this manufacture, which already pays Custom 10d. per Rheam, amounting to £1,666 13s., which by this intended duty will be quite lost, the said Genoa paper being of little use but in Card-making.
” Fourthly. Three parts in four of the Card-makers, and the many families which depend upon them, will by this intended Tax be inevitably ruin’d, for those Card-makers depend upon their credit and work 8 months in 12 for the Winter-Season, and during those 8 months scarce receive enough to find their families with Bread, and therefore can never pay this great Duty and consequently not follow their trade.
“Seeing by this intended Duty her Majesty’s loss in her Customs, the loss of the merchants importing paper, of the Stationers who credit the Card-makers, of the Wholesale Haberdashers wjio sell the Cards, and of the Card-makers, will amount to five times more than this designed imposition can clear of all charges be suppos’d to raise ; and five parts in six of the Card-makers and their numerous Dependents inevitably ruined.
” It is therefore humbly hop’d this Honourable House will give relief in the Premisses.”
The poor Card-makers and the Company of Card-makers also presented petitions against the tax, in language almost identical. The following is the petition known as that of the ” poor ” card-makers : —
” Reasons Humbly offer’d by the Card-makers against the Tax upon Playing-Cards.
” The Card-makers in and about the City of London are about One Hundred Master Workmen. For sometime past (Paper having been double the Price as formerly) the trade is much decayed.
” The most they sell their Cards for to the Retailers (one sort with another) is Three Half-pence the Pack and their Profit not above one Half-penny. So that the Tax intended will be double the value of the Cards and six times their gain.
” The generality of these Card-makers are Poor men and out of the Small Gains above can hardly maintain their families: And therefore to impose a Tax to be immediately paid upon making by the Card-makers (whose Stocks and Abilities are so very mean, that they now make hard shift to forbear the Retailers the ordinary time of Credit) will be a direct way to Ruine these Poor Men.
” Besides there is at present a Stock of Cards in the retailers’ hands sufficient for the consumption of Four or Five years ; and they will assuredly sell all the old stock off before they take any at the New advanced rate: The consequence whereof will be: —
” First. That the Card-makers till that stock be sold off can make no new ones.
” Secondly. That during that time their Families must needs starve.
” Lastly. That until the card-makers can make new ones no money can arise by such a Tax.”
Her Majesty’s “occasions,” however, were such, that opposition was fruitless, and the Act became law. The duty was imposed on all cards ” made fit for sale ” during a certain term. In the following year it was found expedient, for the better securing the duties on playing-cards, and to prevent defrauding of the revenue, to amend this, and to enact that all stocks of cards which were fit for sale before the operation of the former act commenced, and which remained unsold in the hands of any person trading in cards, should be brought to the Stamp-office to be marked. On the traders making oath that the stocks so brought were actually made and finished before the 12th of June, 1711, they were entitled on payment of one half-penny per pack to have them sealed or stamped accordingly. All cards not brought to the Office before the 1st of August, 1712, were to be deemed to be made fit for sale after June, 1711, and to be charged with the full duty. And after July, 1712, no playing-cards were to be exposed for sale or used in play in any public gaming-house unless marked in conformity with the provisions of the act, both on the wrapper and on the spotted or painted side (now called the fore-side), of one of the cards of each pack.
To enforce the duty, various rights of entry to premises engaged with card-making were permitted to the Customs men:
Right of entry, Card Essays, 1879
https://archive.org/details/cardessaysclaysd00caveuoft/page/93/mode/1up Card essays, Clay’s decisions, and card-table talk, by “Cavendish”, pseud, 1879
pp93-95 (pp85-102)
By the same Act the regulations permitting the search entry of revenue officers to the houses of card-makers were extended to public gaming-houses ; and the notices required to be given by card-makers, and the clauses relating to the removal of unstamped cards, were amended and made more stringent. Offenders against these provisions were rendered liable to a penalty of £5 for every pack of unstamped cards found in their possession. It was also made felony, punishable with death, to counterfeit or forge the seals, stamps, or marks which denoted the payment of the duties. About ninety-five years ago the punishment of death was actually inflicted on an unfortunate engraver named Harding, who engraved a duty ace of spades to the order of a card-maker. The card-maker escaped from the country, or he would, in all probability, have shared the engraver’s fate.
Despite the precautions and penalties enumerated, frauds on the revenue continued. Indeed, every enactment relating to playing-cards is accompanied by some reference to fraudulent practices with regard to the duties under the former act. It was now discovered that persons were in the habit, after cards had been used, of cutting out and tearing off the marks placed on the fore-side of playing-cards, for the purpose of affixing the same marks to fresh packs, and so of making one stamp serve over and over again. There was also a method contrived to render available for further use the seal and stamp upon the outside papers or wrappers. In order to check these proceedings a clause was introduced into an Act passed in 6 Geo. I. (1719) “for preventing frauds and abuses in the public revenues.” A penalty of £10 was imposed on any person convicted of working up old stamps; and, when it was suspected that cards were being made up for sale in any private place (that is in any place of which the Commissioners of Stamps had not the usual written notice), power was given to the revenue officers, on a warrant being granted, to break open the doors of the suspected places, and to enter, and seize all ” cards, dice, tools, and materials with which they are made.”
Further, the term of thirty-two years over which the duty upon playing-cards was to remain in force was extended indefinitely.
In an attempt to reduce fraud, from 1765, card-makers were required to provide paper to the Stamp Office onto which an official Ace of Spades would then be printed. The actual duty was imposed in a two part process where half the duty applied to the Ace, and half to a specially stamped disposable wrapper.
But wherever there is a tax to be paid, there are always people looking for ways round it. In the case of duty applied to playing cards, the different way in which “waste” or second hard-cards was treated provided one such opportunity.
Defrauding the revenue, Card Essays, 1879
https://archive.org/details/cardessaysclaysd00caveuoft/page/95/mode/2up Card essays, Clay’s decisions, and card-table talk, by “Cavendish”, pseud, 1879
pp95-100 (pp85-102)
Matters remained in the state described until 29 Geo. II. (1756), when an additional tax of sixpence a pack was imposed on playing-cards. As usual, the opportunity was taken to frame measures in expectation of preventing the fraudulent evasions of the duty which still obtained. It transpired that great frauds were committed under pretence that cards were manufactured for exportation, such cards being exempt from duty. It was therefore enacted that all playing-cards intended for exportation should be distinguished by a particular wrapper, and that one card in each export pack should be marked with a special stamp. Cards wrapped and stamped as for exportation were not to be used in Great Britain, under a penalty of £20. A £20 penalty was also attached to the selling and buying of any covers or labels that had been already used.
It appeared also that the trick of selling slightly soiled playing-cards as ” waste ” was largely practised, to the detriment of the revenue. The soiled cards consisted of those so damaged in making as to be rejected by the manufacturers. They were purchased for a few pence per pound, chiefly by Jew speculators, who sorted them and disposed of them at a cheap rate. In order to put a stop to this system, all persons disposing of cards “commonly called waste cards ” were required before sale to ” mark the back or plain side of every painted or picture card in such manner as to render the same unfit to be used in play.”
In the reign of George III. no less than seven Acts of Parliament were passed relating to cards and dice. All this legislation tended to two ends, — to impose additional duties, and to circumvent the evaders of the tax. It was more than suspected that the Inland Revenue officers were tampered with. A new plan was therefore resolved on. Hitherto the stamp had been impressed on the card made by the manufacturers, the card selected being generally, if not always, the ace of spades. But from and after the 5th July, 1765, makers of playing-cards were required to send to the Stamp Office the paper on which the ace of spades was to be impressed. The Commissioners of Stamps were to print the duty aces of spades themselves, and had a plate prepared for the purpose, with a device somewhat similar to that in use up to 1863, only less elaborate. The Commissioners had the power of altering the device at pleasure, in order to throw difficulties in the way of counterfeiting it. The card-makers were further required to send to the office the wrappers which they proposed to use for enclosing the cards. The wrappers were to have the maker’s name printed on them, and were to be stamped with a sixpenny stamp. This stamp was not an additional duty. The duty still remained at one shilling: but the mode of imposition was varied, so that one half of the duty fell on the ace of spades, and the other half on the wrapper. At the same time, the penalty for refusing to allow inspection of premises where card-making was carried on, was raised from £20 to £50.
Eleven years later an additional duty of sixpence a pack was levied, making the total duty one shilling and sixpence.
In the meantime the ingenious enemies of the revenue had not been idle. The occupation of selling waste cards was gone ; but there was no prohibition against selling second-hand cards. Accordingly, the card-maker’s waste was still sorted into packs, which were disposed of as second-hand cards, ” to the great injury of the revenue.” A penalty of £5 a pack was therefore imposed on any person selling second-hand cards, unless the backs of the picture cards were so marked as to render them unfit to be used in play.
In 1789, and again in 1801, the duty was further increased by sixpenny steps, till it reached the sum of half-a-crown a pack. The traffic in cards not duly stamped was powerfully stimulated by the high duty. Various evasive devices were invented, and more than one speculator amassed a large fortune by selling, under various pretences, cards on which no duty had been paid. Under the then arrangements, waste aces of spades could not be procured to any great extent, for the damaged aces were returned to the Stamp Office, and allowed for in the cardmakers’ accounts. Packs, therefore, were made up for sale with a blank card in place of the ace of spades. Cut-corner cards, as they were called, i.e., packs of cards of which one corner was cut off, and minus the ace of spades, were sold in immense quantities. Cards with a corner cut off, half an inch in depth, were considered by Parliament sufficiently mutilated to render them unfit to be used in play. The public, however, put up with the inconvenience of using cut-corner cards rather than pay the high tax. In fact, the law was found powerless to prevent evasions ; every fresh enactment produced some fresh dodge for driving through it. It was therefore decided to diminish the duty, and to legalise, under certain restrictions, the sale of second-hand cards. In the year 1828, the half-a-crown duty was reduced to one shilling. The shilling duty was to be denoted on the ace of spades. This was the ” duty one shilling ” ace, called ” Old Frizzle,” on account of the elaborate flourishes which adorned it, with which all card-players, prior to 1864, were familiar. The aces were supplied on credit to the card-makers, the duty being exacted from time to time on their making up their packs for sale, when an officer had to attend to put on the wrappers, and to take an account of the numbers. Second-hand cards were permitted to be sold, except by licensed card-makers, provided the words “second-hand cards” were legibly printed or written on the wrapper.
Under the protection of this permission the sale of so-called second-hand cards flourished more vigorously than ever. The less scrupulous manufacturers used to make ” works ” of waste by the ton, for the purpose of sale under the name of second-hand cards. Indeed the clandestine manufacture of cards sold as second-hand was so extensive, that one person alone ” owned to the sale of more unstamped packs in one year than the whole number which, according to the revenue returns, had been charged with duty in the same period, that is to say, upwards of 260,000 packs.” Consequently, by 25 Vict. (June, 1862) the duty was fixed at three-pence per pack, the alteration to commence on ist September, 1862. The financial year ends 31st March, therefore in 1862, half the year the duty was one shilling, the other half three-pence. In the seventh Report of the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Inland Revenue, 1863, it is stated that the alteration from one shilling to three-pence was made ” in the hope of suppressing the enormous evasion of the duty which notoriously prevailed.” At the same time that the amount was reduced, the form in which the duty was levied was altered. Several other reasons for the alteration are given in the Report. The Commissioners remark that ” there were many disadvantages connected with these arrangements,” [i.e., with the arrangements which prevailed prior to 1863.] The principal disadvantages were the expense incurred in printing the aces, and the difficulty of adjusting the cardmakers’ accounts. The cardmakers were always in arrear; they always had more aces supplied than were accounted for in the packs made up for sale ; and though the department had the power of taking an account of the stock not made up for sale, and held by the cardmakers, and of charging for aces not accounted for, the power was but occasionally exercised, on account of the practical difficulty of taking exact stock without serious inconvenience to the makers. Moreover, when stock was taken, a deficiency of aces always appeared, even with the most respectable makers, who were above the suspicion of intentionally defrauding the revenue. This deficiency was, in many instances, allowed to stand over, so that in practice the amount thus owing was as good as remitted.
The slightly different printing process used to create the Ace of Spades, whereby the Stamp Office printed that particular card, was to create problems in play, however:
Abetting the card-sharper, Card Essays, 1879
https://archive.org/details/cardessaysclaysd00caveuoft/page/100/mode/2up Card essays, Clay’s decisions, and card-table talk, by “Cavendish”, pseud, 1879
pp100-102 (pp85-102)
According to the statement of the Commissioners, it appeared that, ” from the mode in which the ace of spades was necessarily prepared at the office, that important card was always different from the rest of the pack, and that this difference, though slight, was to those who were aware of it, readily perceptible by the touch,” so that, in fact, the duty, “which was meant to be pro tanto a discouragement to gambling, was abetting the designs of the card sharper.”
The difference here alluded to is as to the size of the card ; this might have been the case with small makers using imperfect machinery; but manufacturers of repute, who could properly manipulate the cards, were able to turn out the ace of spades precisely like the other cards as to size, thickness, and feel. The idea that the duty was meant to discourage gambling is purely imaginary. It was meant simply to increase the revenue in aid of Her Majesty’s ” occasions ;” and as was well pointed out in the petition presented to Parliament in the reign of Queen Anne, a tax only hinders the common sort who play for innocent diversion, and not sharp gamesters who play for many pounds a game.
Under the present system the ace of spades is free from duty, and is printed by the manufacturers in the same way as the other cards. The duty is now levied on the seal or wrapper in which each pack must be enclosed before it is sold ; and the duty applies to all full-sized playing-cards, whether new or second-hand. The wrappers are supplied from Somerset House as the card-makers require them, and have the name of the manufacturer printed on them.
Thus: suppose a new pack is opened and, as is the case at most clubs, is used only once. Under the old law the soiled pack was exempt from further duty if the words ” second-hand cards ” were legibly written or printed on the wrapper. Now, however, second- hand cards before being resold must be enclosed in a fresh wrapper and pay a second duty.
In 1861 the amount of duty received at one shilling a pack was £14,533, 290,660 packs being sealed. In 1862 — mostly at one shilling, but a small part at threepence — the duty produced ;£13,637, notwithstanding that about 160,000 more packs were sealed than before. When the new régime came into full operation in 1863, 732,960 packs were sealed, a very large increase when compared with the number stamped under the old régime*. Nevertheless, the receipts, owing to the reduction, amounted only to £9,i62, entailing a loss of about £4.450. After 1867, however, the number of packs sealed steadily increased, to 737,120, 813,920, 968,800, and so on; and in 1873 the number stamped was over a million. In 1877-78 the duty rose to £14,139, so that at the present time the smaller duty produces as much as the larger one did within a few pounds. And what is highly satisfactory is that there is no reason for supposing that there is now any evasion of the duty.
So it was that the duty in place, applied in part through the specialist printing of the Ace of Spades, and a capital sentence defined for those who would attempt to fraudulently produce the duty cards.
But still the tinkering with the law continued…