Strange, Slightly O/T Question About Tobacco Distribution
 

Sorry this is slightly off topic but as many of you I do a lot of research about the card companies of the past, especially Topps. I am now trying to determine difficult it would have been for a US firm to distribute imported leaf tobacco outside of the American Tobacco trust network and figure this is the most visible place for such a question.

The father of the four brothers who founded Topps was Morris Shorin and he operated outside the ATC after founding American Leaf Tobacco in 1890. My question is basically would there have been an alternate network of distributors available at the time or would he have to create his own? I can't imagine it was easy going against the ATC!

Thanks for any help on this.

Dave,

If they were importing Turkish leaf for the production of Turkish cigarettes, then they had a fighting chance. While the Trust controlled about 90% of the domestic cigarette business (i.e. cigarettes made from domestic tobacco), they never got above more than about 50% market share in the Turkish cigarette business.

Many/most of the independent Turkish cigarette manufacturers were in NYC and the surrounding area, so importing into NYC for distribution to smaller, independent manufacturers was certainly a viable enterprise. But I'm not aware of any large distribution "networks" outside of the Trust's own. The Trust had trouble breaking the smaller Turkish cigarette manufacturers' position in the market, and I'd suspect the existence of any large, independent and successful leaf distributor aiding and abetting the smaller players' success would have caught the Trust's attention and been something they'd have tried to hobble. If Shorin was lucky, he was successful but not quite successful enough to become the Trust's target.

American Leaf Tobacco did indeed import Turkish leaf tobacco and wholesaled it to various cigar making concerns. I suspect tobacco was the family business prior to their emigration to the US and that Morris used established contacts in Turkey to facilitate his business. It is beginning to look like he established his own network in the Northeast but I need to look into things further to be sure.

dave
 

great research and detective work.
i'm still incubating all of it.
keep it coming.

all the best and happy new year,

barry

Smaller importers of Turkish tobacco fought the Tobacco Trust for years.

Here are a pair or letters to the Editor of The Wall Street News from one of the most prolific early Turkish cigarette manufacturers.