Bromo Seltzer was first sold in 1889! Its inventor, Isaac Edward Emerson, was a druggist in Maryland at the time, but soon quit to manufacture and market the product. The Emerson Drug Company was in full swing by the time of the Spanish American War tax period and ordered private die stamps in 1900. Since the tax was removed as of July 1, 1901, these were only in use for about seven months.

1,967,00 of the one-fourth cent stamps were printed.

605,000 were printed of the five-eights cent stamp.

94,000 of the one-and-one-quarter cents stamp were printed.

There were 68,000 of these two-and-one-half cent stamps printed. This one has a control system cancel. The first digit indicated the day of the week, with 1 for Monday. Second was a letter indicating which week in a half-year, and the last was a number indicating the year, with 8 used for the last half of 1900 and 1 uesd for the first half of 1901. The batch of product this stamp was used on was manufactured on the Monday in the second last week of November, 1900.

Before the private die stamps were printed Emerson used general issue stamps with printed cancels. There are at least seven varieties. This one only used the company's initials.

A printed cancel using the Emerson name. Apparently the company used general issue stamps even after the private ones were available if they were out of the private ones or did not want to reorder them near the end of the tax period.

A clever advertising postcard from 1908. It was not mailed, but someone held the lighted match below it to bring out the answer as to who was the unanimous choice of the people.