Question about T-213's

[rman444]

Originally Posted by canjond

Interestingly, Coupon is not the only cigarette to package cards with softpacks in this time period. Pirate also packaged its cards in softpacks. Later on, however, possibly in the 1920s, Pirate switched to a slide and shell configuration.

Jon - interesting. I have never seen a Pirate soft pack, but many slide and shells. What leads you to believe that the Pirate backed cards were not issued in the slide and shells and these are not circa early 1910's? The number of Chinese beauties/warriors Pirate backed cards leads me to believe that they were issued in the slide and shells.

[canjond]

Originally Posted by rman444

Jon - interesting. I have never seen a Pirate soft pack, but many slide and shells. What leads you to believe that the Pirate backed cards were not issued in the slide and shells and these are not circa early 1910's? The number of Chinese beauties/warriors Pirate backed cards leads me to believe that they were issued in the slide and shells.

A few different reasons... When Hagar made a find of Pirates in the late 1990s (some may recall his auction of them in SCD), the cards came with originals opened packs, all of which were soft packs. Also, more recently, Leon came across an unopened Pirate soft pack which had a card inside. Leon can hopefully fill in more details here. Lastly, I've conversed with the British Cigarette Pack Collectors Club. One of its board members filled me in on the history and the timeline for Pirate slide and shells. Pirate utilized slide and shell starting in the 1920s and into the 1950s.

[canjond]

FYI - here is a Pirate softshell from my collection:

[canjond]

Found the thread to the unopened Pirate Leon discovered:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...rate+cigarette

[Leon]

The Pirate pack I had definitely had a card of some type in it. No one I showed it to (and felt of it) disagreed. It was very obvious. You could actually squeeze the sides and hold the card, while still in the unopened pack. I traded it away quite some time ago for something I wanted more....regards

[tbob]

Hi Jon. "The Southern Find" (so termed by Bill Mastro) occurred when I was contacted by John England a former card collector and dealer, who told me that he had been contacted by a man from Louisiana who had over 2000 T213 Coupon cards he wanted to sell but John couldn't afford to buy them all himself. We went together with two other individuals and bought the cards for $10,000, his asking price. The cards were in incredible condition and were brought to us in a large box where the elderly gentleman said he had had them since he was a young boy. At the time (around 1980), Coupon cards were considered inferior to other tobacco sets like the T205 and T206 and were not collected by very many collectors since they were a regional issue from Louisiana. Because they had the same images on the front as those on the T206 set, they were also not very desired. When we got the cards, we divided the cards as follows: we would take the 24 Cobbs and based on a draw, the first person would get his pick, then second would take the second best and so on. If there were an odd number of cards, like 14 Mattys, we would divy out the Mattys and the last two people would get the first two Johnsons. Then the commons would be divided first come first serve, the 2s and 3s together. I took 3s until I had the near set (missing 2), then started taking 2s. I had 2 Cobbs, McGraw, Bender and five more 3s with the overprinted backs along with the near set.
I sold my duplicate 2s for $2500, so I was even and still had the near set of 3s which I sold about 2-3 years later (to my now chagrin). Finally I sold the overprinted 3s about 20 years later, when they suddenly were bringing much, more than 20 years before although not what they bring now.
The near set of 3s went to Bill Mastro (for peanuts now :-( ). I noticed a couple of years ago a beautiful small grouping of T213-3 HOFers in his catalogue which went for a bunch and which he attributed to the "Southern Find." I think this is evidence that that near set of mine was broken up. Shame. No clue where the 2s went. I assume John England's T213s went to Larry Fritsch as John sold Larry his complete collection of baseball cards for close to a million dollars supposedly. One other partner, Dick DeLong, who opened up a card shop after England sold out, ended up selling all his T213s. My Dad actually bought many of them and I sold them for Dad on eBay about 8 years ago, there were a ton and they were very nice. Dad sold off his complete baseball card collection (he started collecting long after I did) and accumulated one of the best matchbook cover collections around (gack!) That left one person whose name I won't mention for privacy sake. When we divied up the cards, she couldn't be present and asked me to pick for her since she trusted me. She had quite a beautiful haul of cards, almost all T213 2s and most without any cracking. I'd say that she has close to a set and I believe maybe the best collection of T213 2s in existence. I hadn't asked her about the cards in over 25 years but her son said she told him she still had all the cards. Safely hidden away.
It was a great adventure. The seller got his asking price and the buyers got a very good deal. My only regret is that I didn't keep that T213-3 near set. Putting together a near set now, card by card, would be almost impossible, plus extremely expensive if you could find the cards at all.
For those not familiar with the T213s, the 2s have a very glossy front which makes them extremely prone to cracking. The 3s have a flat, dull look with no gloss. They are not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the 2s but are much, much harder to find. The 2s say "20 for 5 cents" on the back, the 3s say "16 for 10 cents." That is the difference in the backs, except the overprints and that is another story for another day.

[canjond]

Wow - what a story. I sure hadn't heard that one before. Congrats on a great find.

[canjond]

Originally Posted by rman444

Jon - interesting. I have never seen a Pirate soft pack, but many slide and shells. What leads you to believe that the Pirate backed cards were not issued in the slide and shells and these are not circa early 1910's? The number of Chinese beauties/warriors Pirate backed cards leads me to believe that they were issued in the slide and shells.

To add something to the Pirate discussion from yesterday that I failed to mention the first time... while I feel confident that T-215 are connected with Pirate softpacks (I should qualify this since I believe there is speculation that Pirate T215s were never inserted into packs), I am unfamiliar with the Chinese cards. I have seen them before, but do not know which year(s) they were produced. If they were produced into the 1920s or later, than they could very well be associated with pirate slide and shell packs, too.

[tbob]

I don't know what a T213-3 Cobb with overprinted back would go for now but I believe there are fewer of these reported than T206 Cobbs with Cobb backs. Now that doesn't rule out the possibility that there are more unreported but they still are exceedingly scarce.

[tedzan]

Great story regarding your T213 find and thanks for sharing it with us.

Question for you......since you are in Arkansas, have you seen any T213's in your region ?

Or were they strictly marketed in Louisiana ? ?


Thanks,

TED Z

[tedzan]

I have only two 1910 COUPON cards and several T213-2's and 3's.
And, I don't agree with the comment that the Type 1's are of "thinner stock".

These cards were printed simultaneously with the regular 350 Series T206's in 1910. The two I have
compare exactly with any T206 thickness.

Hopefully RICHARD (rman444)....will chime in here and tell us if his Cobb is thinner than a normal T206 ?

Personally, my limited experience with these Type 1 COUPON's indicates that they were not printed on
thinner cardboard than a T206.













Can we get some more inputs on the question I have raised here regarding the T213-1 card's thickness ? ?


T-Rex TED

[White Borders]

Hi Ted,

I have 13 raw T213 Type 1's and all are much thinner than T206's.

Best regards,
Craig

[canjond]

Ted,

I have two and mine are both thinner.

- Jon