The No Fee Fish and Game Stamps of California

By Eric Torre | October 17, 2015 |

Expired Licenses Saved

Despite the ambiguous wording in the amendment to section 429, in reference to Indians, it is believed that all of the 1958 overprints were applied at the DFG headquarters in Sacramento (Oliver, 1993 and Vanderford, 1993). The press release reproduced in Figure 11 states: “The free licenses are issued only by the department’s headquarters office.” Of the total number of sport fishing licenses issued in 1958, just under one percent (13,296) were No Fee licenses, each with one or two overprinted stamps affixed (DFG Monthly Progress Report for January of 1959). The old age classification accounted for 89% of the No Fee total (see Table II).

In lieu of having to prove their qualifications year after year, the DFG provided an option to No Fee license recipients whereby they could “quick qualify” by mailing in their recently expired license (Oliver, 1990). After issuing a new license the clerks discarded the old one, usually piling them in a box near their desk. At this time Bill Oliver was working for the State Water Resources Agency in the same building as the DFG headquarters.

Oliver was an active member of the Sacramento Stamp Club. Every year the club sponsors a stamp show to benefit the Easter Seals Society. Club members gather stamps throughout the year to sell at the show, with the proceeds going to the charity. Since the DFG received a great deal of mail, Oliver would often walk up on his lunch breaks to clip stamps off the discarded envelopes. One day the expired fishing licenses started showing up in the boxes and Oliver began to save them also.

Although not initially interested in fish and game stamps, Oliver became fascinated with the various overprints and soon was collecting them in earnest. Upon learning of the small number of No Fee licenses and stamps that had been issued to Indians, Oliver became worried that an example might not be mailed in.

A sympathetic license clerk provided him with the names and addresses of the Indian recipients and Oliver wrote to them offering a few dollars each for their obsolete licenses. In this way Oliver was able to obtain six pairs and a single of the 1958 Indian overprints and three pairs from 1959 (see Figure 18). Remarkably, Alis Means mailed in her expired license each year and Oliver saved them from the discarded mail (Oliver, 1990 and 1993).