This article features a Hart and Son receipt with tax stamps. This receipt is from one famous violin dealing company in London (Hart and Son) to one of the premiere American violin dealing firms, the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company. The receipt is for ten pounds, to which there are three tax stamps adhered. I do not usually collect tax or revenue stamps, although I have a couple in my collection. However, when I came across this unusual item in a music antiquarian’s shop, it was a must have for my stamp collection.
Hart and Son
The firm Hart & Son is one of the oldest and most prestigious in the violin trade. It began in London in 1825 when John Hart began making violins. His son, John Thomas Hart, took over the shop and published a complete study of violins from makers of Cremona, Italy. Although they were famous as makers, they also began to be experts in violin connoisseurship and to sell higher priced old Italian instruments.
The most famous member of the family was George Hart, son of John Thomas, who ran the shop until his death in 1891. George was known for his publications including The Violin: Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators (London, 1875). By the turn of the century, the shop, now run by Georg Hart’s sons: George (II) and Herbert Hart, was one of the most influential dealers in old violins in London, along with other venerable companies including W.E. Hill & Sons, and J&A Beare.
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company
Rudolph Wurlitzer was an instrument builder from Germany who immigrated to the United States and set up his own firm in Cincinatti, Ohio, in 1853. In addition to building instruments, he also imported large numbers from his native Germany. During the American Civil War, he was able to gain a contract to supply the Union Army with instruments. In the late 19th century, under the direction of Rudolph’s oldest son Howard Eugene, the firm became a leader in automatons, pianos, and pump organs.
The success of the Wurlitzer firm at selling instruments to the massess allowed the company to diversify. Rudolph’s younger son, Rudolph Henry Wurlitzer, went to Berlin in 1891 to begin studying violin, acoustics, and violin making under several experts there. After his studies in Berlin, Rudolph Henry Wurlitzer established a branch of the company specializing in fine violins. By the end of the First World War, hundreds of old violins had been through the Wurlitzer shop. Rembert Wurlitzer, son of Rudolph Henry, also became a violin expert. After World War II he set up the Rembert Wurlitzer Company in Manhattan, where he independently ran what become one of the most prestigious violin firms in the world. Learn more here.
The Receipt
The receipt is relatively straight forward. It is on a printed page from the Hart and Son company, “Violin Dealers & Manufacturers.” Above this, there is handwritten “The Rudolph Wurlitzer Co.” with the date Oct. 12, 1924. Right below that, there is a hand stamp that says “1924 OCT 13 AM 90.”
How about the charge? Surely a receipt from one famous violin dealer to another must have been for a valuable or famous old instrument? Not at all, the handwritten receipt says “To an old English Kit.” with a charge of only ten pounds. In the same handwriting, the receipt also states “Rec’d cash” ten pounds, Hart & Son.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
A “kit” is the English nomenclature for a small violin, which is lso known as a pochette. The small instruments usually have very little soundboard, so they cannot produce a large volume. However, they are perfect for a dance teacher to play a tune while they teach a small group of students the latest dance steps. They were popular all across Europe from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. However, except for a handful of very elaborately decorated pochettes, they are inexpensive instruments.
Indeed, the bill of only ten pounds, shows that this small collectible was more of an oddity or a showpiece. It was common for violin dealers to display odd old instruments in their workshops. It was a way of drawing attention from passersby or those that wandered into their shop. Perhaps the Wurlitzer’s were buying an old English pochette for just such a reason.
The Stamps
On the bottom of the receipt are three stamps. Two green halfpenny stamps and one carmine penny stamp, all featuring George V in profile. The value of the three stamps together is two cents for a ten pound transaction. These stamps are actually definitive stamps that could be used for postage or for tax purposes, or dual-purpose stamps. Notice the writing around the crown on the stamps, they all say “POSTAGE” and also “REVENUE.”
