Posted By:
Mark MacraeSome additional trivia...The Contentnea brand of cigarettes was marketed by the Erwin Nadal Tobacco Company in Wilson, North Carolina. If one digs out a map, you'll note that Wilson sits in the middle of 4 cities, Raleigh, Goldsboro, Rocky Mount and Greenville. Each of the five cities hosted baseball clubs which were featured in the T-209 series. At the turn of the century, this region, needless to say was "tobacco country". Today there is a nature preserve and creek which bears the Contentnea name. Joe Pelaez & I talked about this series a few years back with the same amount of curiosity about the identity of B.E Thompson. We have yet to recruit a local, North Carolina based historian that might have a clue to Thompson's prominance in Wilson at the time. While many cities in the US had directories, which often times contained advertising or personal information, I've yet to locate one from Wilson which was printed around 1910. As touched on above by Scott B, I believe that there was a regulation requiring 'point of origin' to be included on the insert cards of the 20th Century. The only baseball set that seems to have bypassed this regulation was the T-217 Mono Cigarette series.... I believe that Tom H has identified the correct individual as well.... I'll email another friend who began studying the subjects in T-209 & T-210 about 10 years ago and will post any updates on Thompson's identity (if known) ......interesting post on such an obscure set....