Merchandise

A comprehensive general term for all those things which persons in trade usually keep for sale. The word is not capable of exact definition, being collective. In most uses it signifies personal chattels, the product of artisanship or manufactures, as distinguished from land, live animals, agricultural produce in its original condition, and evidences of debt; but in special connections may have a more comprehensive meaning. The consideration that a thing is sometimes bought and sold does not render it merchandise: it should be a usual subject of trade. In the earlier duty laws of the United States, the expression, goods, wares, and merchandise, was scrupulously used to comprehend all subjects of duty collectively. But in the revised statutes merchandise alone is used as the equivalent of goods, wares, and merchandise. Merchandise, in a common count for goods sold and delivered, embraces animate as well as inanimate property.

Weston v. Mc Dowell, 20 Mich. 353.

Horses brought from a foreign country into the United States for the purpose as included in the term "merchandise," in the act of 1821 regarding imports. But when brought in as the mere instruments of prosecuting a temporary journey or visit, they are not within the purview of the act United States v. One Sorrel Horse, 22 Vt. 655. " Merchandise " seems not to have any fixed and technical legal signification, but comprehends whatever is usually bought and sold, what merchants commonly trade in. A policy of insurance taken out upon " grain and other merchandise " contained in certain warehouses ought not to be construed as embracing disused fixtures of the business, although the insurers would willingly have sold them had a purchaser appeared, but should he confined to grain and stuffs somewhat similar, in whicii the insurers ordinarily dealt.

Kent v. Liverpool & London Ins. Co., 26 Ind. 294.

A policy on " merchandise " will cover a "curricle." Duplanty u.

Com. Ins. Co., Anth. 114.

A policy upon merchandise such as is usually kept in country stores, is not void because hardware, china, and glass-ware, looking-glasses, &c., were not specifically mentioned; whether the articles were such as are usually kept iu country stores is for the jury to determine. Franklin, &c.

Ins. Co. K. Updegraff, 48 Pa. Si. 350.

A charter power to run a steamboat for the " transportation of merchandise " does not authorize. carrying bank-notes. Banknotes are not merchandise. That term is usually, if not universally, limited to things that are ordinarily the subjects of commerce and trafiic. The fact that a thing is sometimes bought and sold is no proof that it is merchandise. And the word properly signifies specific articles having a sensible intrinsic value, bulk, weight, or measure in themselves, and not things which are merely evidences of debt.

Citizens' Bank v. Nantucket Steamboat Co., 2 Story, 16, 53.

The sale of shares in a joint-stock company is a transfer of " merchandise," within the statute of frauds.

Pray v. Mitchell, 60 Me. 430.

The expression goods, wares, and merchandise, in the statute of frauds, includes shares of stock in a corporation.

Kne v. Hornsby, 2 Mo. App. 61.,