Sterling amassed one of the finest such collections and sold it to Hiram Edmund Deats in 1888 for what was then the huge sum of seven thousand dollars.
In 1890, he and Deats joined together and purchased seven boxcar loads (amounting to 213 tons) of “excessed” paperwork from the U.S. Treasury.
They discovered that the lot contained a “gold mine” of revenue stamps, including unused ones.
He made several important purchases, such as the archives of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania security printers and engravers Butler and Carpenter which contained both private and government revenue stamps.
The archives contained essays, proofs, “special tax stamps” and other collateral material, most of which he subsequently sold to Deats.