Elsmere Revenue Board
Bonded-warehouse duty stamp
A duty stamp for a fictional revenue authority, applied at the point goods leave bond and destroyed on opening.
Elsmere Revenue Board 2022
Job file
- Institution
- Elsmere Revenue Board
- Document
- Duty stamp
- Year
- 2022
- Quantity
- 2,400,000
- Substrate
- Gummed Security Wove 90gsm
- Sector
- Revenue and duty
- Features
- Watermark , Recess engraving (intaglio) , UV-reactive fibres , Forensic taggant
The Elsmere Revenue Board — an invented authority, used here to show the class of work rather than any real jurisdiction — required a stamp applied across the closure of a container as it leaves a bonded warehouse. It must tear rather than peel, and it must be unambiguous at a glance to an inspector walking a line of pallets.
The stock is a gummed security wove chosen to fail destructively: the sheet gives way before the adhesive does, so a stamp that has been lifted is visibly a stamp that has been lifted. Watermark and fibres identify the stock itself. Intaglio carries the Board’s device.
Reconciliation
At two and a half million impressions, accounting matters more than any single feature. Every sheet is numbered, spoilage is weighed and witnessed, and the reconciliation is signed by the Board’s own officer before the run leaves the works. The forensic marker exists to answer the question that reconciliation cannot: whether a particular stamp came from this contract at all.