Entertainment Revenue Stamps 1939-1985. Collection of My Posts from Facebook.

Thailand Entertainment duty, first issue May 18, 1939. Printed by the Royal Thai Army Survey Department. Exists in imperforate and rouletted in lines. The 1 and 5 baht values with Arabic numerals were added in 1944 during world war 2. A 3 satang yellow also exists, but only 2 copies are recorded.

These stamps range from very rare to scarce for the 25 satang and 1 baht. Originally the entertainment tax was levied on all kinds of entertainment for which spectators had to pay an entrance fee.

Later in 1944, also hotels and restaurants became subject to this tax. More on entertainment revenues in my free website www.thailandrevenues.com  See the entertainment chapter in the Thailand Revenue stamp catalog, top left on the homepage.

The first issue had 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 25 satang stamps and on 9 March 1944, a 1 and 5 baht stamp was issued. A 10 baht stamp was announced, but I believe it was never issued. In the next posts, I will show the various values on receipts. The unique receipt below is the oldest receipt known and was issued on an entertainment ticket dated 9 August 1939, some two months after the introduction of entertainment stamp. By law, tickets and stamps had to be torn upon entering the venue, this to prevent recycling the stamps. Maybe because the law was just introduced, the ticket below did escape being torn, this makes it very rare. The ticket shows the green 10 satang stamps.

The 5 satang stamps on receipt. Besides the 1939 entertainment ticket shown in my previous post, no other first series stamps are known on entertainment tickets because they had to be destroyed upon entering the entertainment venue.

Very luckily (for Thailand revenue stamp collectors), a law was passed on January 18, 1944 that required a 20% tax rate, payable via Entertainment stamps, on hotel and restaurant receipts. These receipts did not have to be destroyed, and the stamps only had to be cancelled. So, nearly all existing first series revenue stamps originate from those receipts.

A pair of 25 satang red on hotel receipt. Receipt for a 2 night hotel stay in Pitsanuloke issued October 20, 1945. The hotel room was baht 4 per night. In addition, a 1 baht (on the left) and a 10 satang green entertainment stamp. The purple 5 satang stamp on top was the newly introduced document fee.

Thailand Entertainment revenue stamps first issue used in October 23, 1947. The 2 satang stamps of the first series are very rare, most collectors of Thailand revenue stamps do not have this value. Below is a hotel receipt for 5 nights in Lampang, in the northern part of Thailand. The cost is a total of 36 baht. This receipt has 60 stamps of 2 satang in a large block. The receipt also has some stamps from the second issue, which I will show in a separate post when I discuss the second issue.

Thailand Entertainment revenue first series 3 satang yellow. The 3 satang is very rare, only 2 copies are recorded to exist and the stamp in picture 2 is the best copy of the two. The other copie sold on eBay a few years ago for $250++. The copy shown here seems to be torn out of the sheet by hand, no scissors were used. The date suggests 1943. It was placed by a previous collector on a sheet with other space fillers, Entertainment revenues. Very soon this yellow “ugly” stamp will get a special place in my own collection. I think the reason there are only two yellow stamps surviving is that the color yellow is very easily faded by the tropical climate in Thailand.

Thailand Entertainment revenues first issue 1939, the 4 and 5 satang values. I do not have any receipt with a 4 satang value, so I show in picture 1 the 4 satang value. However, I like to show an interesting receipt dated June 30, 1945, with the 5 satang stamps. Picture 2 shows a receipt for 3 nights in a hotel for a total of baht 24 or 8 baht per night. The tax was 20% or baht 4.80.

On the receipt are six stamps of 5 satang and also two stamps of 1 baht. The receipt is written on the backside of a block of fifty stamps of also 5 satang. All stamps on front and backside have the total the value of baht 4.80. The imprint on the right side in the margin reads, printed by the Royal Thai Survey Department. A very unique document.

Thailand Entertainment revenue stamps first issue 5 baht blue. On a hotel receipt dated May 1947, mixed with several second issue stamps and also General revenues to pay the 0.5% document fee of baht 1.60. This receipt was part of a series of 7 receipts for consecutive stays at the Oriental hotel, a famous luxury hotel besides the Chaopya river in Bangkok.

A block of eight of the 5-baht first issue is very rare. At this moment a single 5 baht stamps is $50+++, while the complete receipt costed $50 some 10 years ago. This is my last post on the first entertainment revenue stamp series.