Fort Peck Indian Reservation

Tribal Bird License Stamps

The Fort Peck Indian Reservation is located in the northeastern comer of Montana. Similar to the state bird license stamps issued through 1977-78, the stamps were required to hunt waterfowl on the reservation. The earliest recorded examples are from 1975. However, it is believed that stamps were issued prior to 1975. In the 1970s, a stamp dealer was able to acquire carbons for hunting and fishing stamps from 1973 but not the stamps themselves. The catalog numbers in this section may be revised if more information becomes available concerning earlier issues.

The stamps were plain rouletted 6.5 and printed in panes of ten (5x2) with a tab at the left. One canary- colored and one pink carbon copy of the pane was affixed to the reverse of the tab. It is believed that the panes were not stapled together to form a booklet. Stamps issued from 1975 through 1977 were printed with a three-part serial number. The left component consists of the prefix "No." in red ink. The middle portion consists of the letter "B" indicating bird license stamp (to distinguish the serial numbers from those used on similar fishing license stamps), combined with an abbreviated year date and a hyphen, all in black ink. The right part consists of the sequential number in red ink. The $5 black on orange stamps (Figure MT16) were printed with black serial numbers which lack a middle component specifying the year date. It is believed that they were issued starting in 1978 and probably used year after year for an unknown length of time. The 1975 stamps had shiny gum, while subsequent issues all had dry gum.

Unsigned values are for any unused stamps, free from notations, that may be without gum. Signed stamps have the license number and / or date of issue written in. They may or may not bear a signature.