Bloomingdale Bros. v. United States

The appellants in this case imported at the port of New York during the year 1907 several invoices of hairpins and safety pins made of base metal. The chemist attached to the laboratory of the United States appraiser’s office at New York officially reported that all the hairpins were plated with gold; that some of the safety pins were plated with tin, some of them with nickel plate, and that still others were either lacquered or enameled. With the exception of certain black enameled pins, which were assessed for duty under paragraph 188, the collector of customs classified all the pins as…