Posted By:
Ted ZanidakisThe American Caramel Co. (ACC) was the 1st to provide a major series of colorful BB cards in the 20th Century. Albeit, their first
offering is quite crude; nevertheless, it set the precedent for all the great classic BB card sets which were to follow. Research
shows that the first series of 33 cards of this set, designated E91-A, were issued this month in 1908. Players in it, such as Rube
Waddell with the Philadelphia A's (traded to St Louis 2/7/08) and Fred Tenney with the NY Giants (traded to the Giants 12/3/07),
pretty well determine this date.
Daniel Franklin Lafean started the ACC in 1900 when he paid Milton Hershey $1 Million for the caramel division of Hershey's confec-
tionary business. Lafean set up candy manufacturing in York, PA (his hometown) and Philadelphia. Lafean was previously the Direc-
tor of Gettysburg College. It is there where he met a young college BB pitcher named Eddie Plank.
In Philadelphia, Lafean and Connie Mack developed a close friendship. Connie Mack's A's were the talk of Philly, and in 1907 Mack
encouraged Lafean to provide BB cards as premiums to boost the sales of his ACC product. The E91-A issue portrays 11 players
each of the 3 very popular teams.....A's, Cubs and Giants.
This experiment proved to be quite successful, so the ACC went on to design and produce a larger set, and a more artistically
improved set of BB cards. The 1st series was released later in 1908......we now know these cards as the E90-1 set. The 2nd
series of this 120-card set was issued in 1909. The last (very tough) series was issued in 1910. The three Pennsylvania teams
represent 25% of the players in this set, including the 1st card of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson (A's). And, for some unknown reason,
most of the Boston (AL & NL) players in this set were not printed until the last series and are very tough to find. Subsequently,
ACC also produced two partial team sets of Pittsburg (E90-2) and the Cubs (E90-3).
Connie Mack favored his College educated BB players and the two Eddie's (Collins and Plank) were certainly top on his list. Jack
Coombs, a Colby College (Maine) graduate, was also one of his favorites. These guys were part of a great team from 1909 - 1914.
A year ago I posted my theory regarding ACC's impact on the scarcity of the T206 Plank card. Since then, more research into the
"Candy/Tobacco Wars" of early 20th Century BB cards, it's beginning to appear that players like Collins and Coombs (and others....
especially A's and Pittsburg players) were prevented from being portrayed in the subsequent Tobacco sets that were started in 1909.
Certainly, this is true in the 1st series (150 Subjects) of the T206 set, as very few A's players are portrayed.
Further research may indeed unravel mysteries such as why the T206 proof of Eddie Collins (batting)....was never issued.
http://www.t206museum.com/page/ga_proofscollins.html
Did ACC force this card to be withdrawn from the 150 series design of the T206 issue due to ACC's exclusive rights to Collins ?
Ditto, for the T206 Eddie Plank being withdrawn ?
What is your guess ?
These "Candy/Tobacco Wars" were the precursors to the Bubble Gum wars between Goudey & National Chicle, and Leaf & Bowman,
and Bowman & Topps to the rights to portray certain BB players in their sets.
So, let's have a celebration....and, post any additional information on these Caramel cards. It will be greatly appreciated.
TED Z