1 Cent Arizona Liquor Tax

Arizona's Depression-era liquor tax stamps occupy a genuinely odd corner of fiscal history. Prohibition had ended federally in December 1933, but states moved at their own pace to build revenue frameworks around newly legal alcohol sales, and Arizona's 1935 commission-issued series reflects that scramble — a newly reconstituted tax apparatus trying to monitor per-drink or per-bottle transactions at the lowest denomination possible.

At 22 x 19 mm, this is essentially a postage stamp in function if not in form, affixed as proof of tax payment. The Arizona State Tax Commission was reorganized multiple times through the 1930s, which occasionally makes precise attribution of these early series difficult.