Monday, June 2, 2014

Smoking Contraband: Reproduction tax stamp for the cigarette lighter

Everyone thinks that their nation taxes them the most but it is fair to say that the Italians get it pretty bad. Case in point is the cigarette lighter which was subject to its own tax back when it was new. To prove that the tax was paid, a little paper tag was affixed to the lighter. These tags were almost immediately removed leaving very few cars with them still today.
 
 
In an effort to present the car as it would have been delivered we affixed our own perfect reproduction. Over 40 years on we are not expecting to be hunted down by the Italian tax authorities and thought it a nice detail in the interior of the car. 
 
 



5 comments:

  1. would this have only been applied to cars delivered in italy? no reason for it outside italian tax authority.

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  2. It is our understanding that this tax was paid by the manufacturer of the cigarette lighters so regardless of the country of destination the fee was collected at the source. This theory is supported by several NOS lighters we have come across that had the tax stamp on them and these are parts that have never been fitted or allocated to a car.

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  3. ok, sounds good. do you have extra labels to sell?

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    1. Regrettably I do not. The reproduction tax label is not one of the items we produced and the one that we have is a one off that was given to us a few years back during our travels and I am unable to get any more.

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