1878-83 5c Russell, Morgan & Co. Playing Cards, Black, Double Line Watermark USIR

This 5-cent private die playing card revenue stamp was issued by Russell, Morgan & Co. of Cincinnati, the printing firm that would go on to become the United States Playing Card Company and eventually produce the Bicycle brand, one of the most recognized playing card names in the world. In 1880 the partners Anthony O. Russell and Robert J. Morgan, who had spent more than a decade building one of the largest folding box, label, and show card printing operations in the country, made the decision to enter the playing card business then dominated by New York manufacturers. They added two floors to their Cincinnati building, commissioned custom machinery designed specifically for card production, and on June 28, 1881, produced their very first deck, Tigers No. 101. This revenue stamp was part of the preparation for that launch, ordered as the company readied itself to compete with the established East Coast trade.

The design is one of the most arresting in the entire playing card revenue series. At the center, rendered in tight engraved detail, is the head of a snarling big cat, mouth open, eyes forward, contained within a tight circle. It is the same animal that gave the company's first brand its name, and placing it on the revenue stamp was a deliberate statement of identity. Russell, Morgan & Co. was not content to use a generic or typographic design; they wanted their tax stamp to look exactly like what it was, the mark of a company that intended to be taken seriously.

Russell, Morgan & Co. launched their playing card line with five brands in 1881 and introduced Bicycle cards in 1885, the deck that would eventually define the company. By 1891 the firm had renamed itself the United States Printing Company, and in 1894 the playing card operations were incorporated separately as the United States Playing Card Company. That company is still in business today, more than 140 years after the tiger on this stamp first went to press.