At the end of the First World War, the Canadian government imposed taxes on a number of items to defray its substantial costs. Among them were so-called luxury (inelegantly defined as ‘non-essential goods’) taxes that were applied to products such as automobiles, radios, fishing rods (a sport of the privileged?), and all items the government broadly defined as jewellery. This latter tax was referred to as the jewellery excise tax (JET).