3 cents Ohio Sales Tax Receipt

Ohio's sales tax receipt stamps occupied an odd bureaucratic middle ground — they were not currency, but they circulated as payment tokens and were treated as such in retail transactions. Ohio used a receipt coupon system rather than adhesive stamps, meaning these slips passed hands across shop counters and accumulated in cash drawers in a way that brought them closer to fractional currency than to standard tax documentation.

Merrick Lithograph was a Baltimore-based commercial printer with no particular numismatic pedigree, which is exactly why these were produced cheaply and discarded without thought — survival rates are low despite the enormous print quantities the system required.