Cool T80/T206 Find -- Cairo Monopol

[Blitzu]

During my quest to complete a back run on the T206's I developed a few new passions as I was intrigued at the varying levels of difficulty and rarity for several backs. That led me to the T80's which shared the the T205's characteristics on the front with the gold and borders but came with some of the rarest T206's backs. As I'm aware they were part of some of the last year and run for the T206 printing I also was confused at the reasoning of why a random back for the Cairo Monopol was printed only for the T80 and never appeared for the T206. As some of them have shown up in locations outside the US this might explain the reason why it is so rare. The one I have was acquired from a vendor located in the U.K. Also the even rarer blank backs for the T80's were only distributed in New Zealand (which is also where I came across mine).

Through all my research I never came across a picture of a Cairo Monopol tobacco pack or packaging. Which also raised my intrigue much as the T206 Cobb backs have never been found in their packaging but were believed to come from those tins. Yet recently my luck struck again and I acquired a Cairo Monopol pack and I wanted to share its picture with the rest of you. I can't make out the date on the tax stamp (but it has to be sometime after 1901), and it is odd as the box has one factory on it and the tax stamp has another.

Either way enjoy and I would love to hear any thoughts of it.