The first thing I remember is all the swearing. Then the frantic rustling. A hectic voice said, “I’ll call you right back,” before the phone abruptly clicked off. It wasn’t a fight, home invasion, or a spousal argument on the other side–it was a friend getting ready to go to the range, only to discover he couldn’t find his NFA tax stamp. Or any of his firearm stamps, for that matter. That got me thinking…
Organizing Your NFA Tax Stamp Collection
Just the Tip!
There have been discussions in the past about who exactly is legally allowed to ask to see your tax stamps under federal law. In general, I think having a copy in your possession whenever you have an NFA firearm with you is absolutely the best policy. I’ve run into situations where range owners wanted to see it (though they may not have a legal right to see it, they also don’t have a legal obligation to let you shoot on their range), and it may satisfy the curiosities of any local law enforcement officials. If you only have a stamp or two, you might not have put a lot of thought into exactly how you’re going to organize and store them until you can’t find them.
And I admit, my friend on the phone isn’t alone. Early on, I misplaced a copy, only to tear through all my stuff for a couple of hours until I found it. It was after that incident that I decided to be a little more proactive and responsible person.
Your originals you want to keep in a safe place. While I have many gun owner friends who store them in fireproof residential security containers, I keep all originals in a bank-safe deposit box. They sit there along with my auto titles, DD214, and Krugerrands other stuff. The smallest box is all you’ll need, and it’s fairly cheap insurance.
Of course, and as usual, you’ve got options:
Kinkos Arts & Crafts
Copies of tax stamps are A-OK, and it’s far far better to misplace or lose a copy than the original. What’s more, the copies don’t have to be 100% to scale. I head to my local copy/print shop (pleasantly co-located with a Starbucks) and make full-color, two-sided, 50% scaled copies.
If my copy machine wizardry works out right, I end up with a perfect copy of the stamp, front and back, on a quarter of the page. But it usually doesn’t work out, and I have to play with glue sticks like my toddler.
A trip through the lamination machine and a hole punch later, you have a great semi-weatherproof crisp scaled copy of your NFA tax stamp. I make multiple bundles, so I’ll always know where one is; one in the range bag, another in the safe, one in a Pelican–you get the idea. To be honest, the hardest part is collecting all the sets for updating when a new stamp comes in.
Pelican Case for Sale
Lookin’ for a Pelican Case for sale? Here ya go!
Where to Find Your Pelican Case
Go Digital with Electronic ATF Form
If you managed to get stamps via an approved ATF Form electronically (ATF eForm) before the new rules negated the process, you’ve noticed that with an electronic ATF eForm, you don’t receive a physical stamp in the mail. Instead, a copy of the approved paperwork shows up in your inbox, and you can also access it via the ATF webpage. I know this rubbed some people the wrong way, as there’s just something to that official $200 stamp, but such is life. Aside from being convenient, it also is an effective demonstration that digitizing your stamps is another way to store an infinite number of copies.
I scanned in all of my NFA tax stamps as PDFs and merged the appropriate pages together. Then I uniquely named them for fast identification if I have to pull the paperwork up. If you host them on a place like Dropbox or similar, you’ll be able to access and print them from anywhere.
If you’re using an NFA gun trust, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have that ready to go as well.
Conclusions and Loose Rounds
There are gun owners who run variations on this theme, making reduced-sized copies to stick in the pistol grip of their short barrel rifle, for example. Personally, I roll with both options listed above. It can take a little time upfront if you have many stamps and haven’t gone through the process, but the peace of mind and ease of access makes the juice worth the squeeze. And never again will I have to rummage through a bunch of shit right after moving, just to ensure I have a tax stamp when heading to the range.
-DFM
This article originally ran in 2016.
Find more articles like this one – here.
1/4 sized and laminated with a digital copy on the phone is my way of doing this.
All that prep and I’ve never been asked for one…
Two more easy options (I do both in addition to having multiple hard copies):
1. Take photos of them on your phone – always there even if no internet access.
2. I send digital copies of every stamp to two different email accounts and file them in a “stamp” folder. Not only can I access them on my phone, but anywhere I can get a computer with Internet access.