Private Die Proprietary Stamps
(The "Match and Medicine" Stamps)

This site was designed to show face-different examples of most of the United States Private Die Proprietary stamps of the Civil War and Spanish American War tax periods, and give some information on each of them.



There are two ways to navigate the site. Both are accessible from this page or the General Information Page.

The first way to navigate is to use the Thumbnail Pages. Clicking on any thumbnail page will bring up a life-sized version of it. Each stamp on that page will be a link to a detail page that will show a larger version of the stamp and other stamps of the same issuer or a predecessor or successor, and give some further information.

The second way to navigate is to choose one of the five category links: matches, canned foods, patent medicines, perfumes or playing cards. Each of these will lead to a list of the companies in the category that used private die stamps. Any name on the list is a link to the detail page for the stamp or stamps of that company.





General Information


Thumbnail Pages


Matches (RO)
Canned Fruit (RP)
Patent Medicine (RS)
Perfume (RT)
Playing Cards (RU)




Thank You is due to Ron McVay and Richard Friedberg, who provided copies of a number of the rare items for this project.         - Bob Hohertz