Reaffirming the Law with Regard to Stamp Duty, 1804#
Ever since the time of Queen Anne, in the early seventeen hundreds, the Ace of Spades was, quite literally, a marked card, required to bear an official mark.
Stamp duty, a tax on every pack of playing cards, was levied on the wrapper that sealed each new pack of cards, and a stamp on the ace showed that the duty had been paid on that pack.
Originally applied as a hand stamp, from the mid-1700s the Ace of Spades in each pack was separately printed by the official Stamp Office. Card makers printed 51 cards of the deck, but had to purchase the Duty Ace from the Stamp Office. The intricate design of the Ace of Spades stems from this period: it was an anti-fraud device. The card also include a plate number and the name of the maker. Only an official ace was allowed in a pack, and any printer fraudulently publishing the ace of spades card could be punished severely for it.
Very severely. In an Act of Parliament of 1804 updating stamp duty across a range of items, the act of defrauding the monarch by forging stamps used to identify duty as having been paid was reaffirmed to be a felony. Which is to say, if you were convicted, then you could expect to receive a death penalty.
An act to repeal and update stamp duties, Ch. 89. July, 1804
https://archive.org/details/statutesatlarge55britgoog/page/381/mode/1up p381
CAP. XCVIII. An act to repeal the several duties under the commissioners managing the duties upon stamped vellum, parchment, and paper, in Great Britain, and to grant new and additional duties in lieu thereof.— July 28, 1804.
1804 Anno regi quadragenmo quarto Georgii III C. 98. 381 [Geo. III, 44]
IX. And be it further enacted, That if any person or Persons whatosever shall forge or counterfeit, or cause or procure to be forged or counterfeited, any mark, stamp, or die, which shall be provided, made, or used in pursuance of this act, or shall counterfeit or resemble, or cause or procure to be counterfeited or resembled, the impression of any such mark, stamp, or die, upon any vellum, parchment, paper, or other material, or upon any other matter or thing, or the impresion of the stamp or die, upon any vellum, parchment, or paper, allowed to be issued, used, or applied under the authority of this act, thereby to defraud his Majesty, his heirs or successors, of any of the duties by this act charged or imposed, or if any person or persons shall utter, vend, or sell, any vellum, parchment, paper, or other material, or other matter or thing, with such forged or counterfeit mark, stamp, or impression thereupon, knowing such mark, stamp, or impression to be forged or counterfeit, every such person so offending, being thereof convicted in due form of law, shall be judged a felon, and shall suffer death, as in cases of felony, without benefit of clergy.
Benefit of Clergy
If you read through old statutes, you are often likely to come across the phrase “without benefit of clergy” applied to to way in which certain offences are to be judged.
This refers to an old tradition whereby members of the clergy was allowed to submit themselves to the mercy of an ecclesiastical court, in a trial held under canon law, rather than a civil or King’s court.
The Schedule associated with Stamp Duties in the 1804 Act sets the duty on playing cards as follows:
Playing-Cards, for every pack which shall be made fit for sale or use in Great Britain 2s 6d.