T: An insignificant question

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Posted By: Joe D.

with the 'N' cards, it would appear that the 'N' stands for 'n'ineteenth century.

is it possible the original designation for 'T' was 't'wentieth century? And the 'T' later on turned into 'Tobacco'?


can any of our hobby historians clear this up?

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Posted By: Ed Hans

I don't think that Burdick ever used the "N" prefix when he developed his classification system. Nineteenth century cards were simply known by their assigned numbers; "172", "300" etc. The prefix was added by later chroniclers for the sake of consistency. I believe that the "T" prefix was always meant to stand for "tobacco".

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Posted By: leon

Burdick didn't use "N" for nineteenth century tobacco he used it for an international issue, I believe. Bert Sugar put the N in Nineteenth century. I think Burdick did use T for twentieth century tobacco cards...

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Posted By: barrysloate

I don't believe there is a single known card which uses the "T" designation that didn't come with some tobacco product. Also, there are no pre-1900 "T" cards. So in a sense it happens to stand for both.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

as far as i always knew, "T" stands for "twentieth century tobacco cards"

scroll to the bottom...c/o david hornish.

www.oldbaseball.com/refs/typecards.html

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

From my copy of The American Card Catalog, 1960.

on page 42...

"Section 5"
"19th century U.S. Tobacco Insert Cards"
then follows a list of N cards


and on page 59...

"Section 6"
"20th century U.S. Tobacco Insert Cards"
then follows a list of T cards



Seems OBVIOUS to me that N is for nineteenth century tobacco, and T is for twentieth century tobacco.


Frank W.

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Posted By: leon

Frank my friend. Keep looking in the ole ACC and you will see Burdick did NOT use N for 19th century tobacco. He used N for other issues....maybe South America? He only used a number for 19th century and no prefix letter....take care

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Posted By: Joe D.

is if the 'tobacco' portion was an afterthought.

I can see by the posts that T stands for Twentieth Century Tobacco (thank you).


Diving into the thought process... just wondering if the pioneers initially thought that an an 'N' and a 'T' would suffice... and then said - oh crap.... we need to further break these Ts down to Ds and Ms and such.



edit: frank - I just re-read your post, and you are suggesting they both 'n and t' stood for tobacco. which I guess would make sense.

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Posted By: Paul S

If T is for Twentieth Century and tobacco cards, why aren't Twentieth Century candy cards TE? Just curious
*edited spellin'.

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Posted By: leon

Burdick started the ACC numbering system and I always go to his writings first. E was for Early gum and candy cards....

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Posted By: Paul S

I should probably do more of my own research on that side of the hobby.

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Posted By: fkw

In the ACC "N" was originally used for Central and South American Tobacco.

ie.


1915 N230-3 Susini



1924 N258 Diaz Cigarettes


1931 N561 Bigott

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Well now, Leon... I conceed that Mr. Burdick grouped other stuff in with N.

Burdick's "special index" on page 4...

"N C & S Amer. Tobacco 73"

And there, on page 73, it has N1 as Argentine Cowboys.


Back on page 43, "1 American Editors (50) 1st series, numbered"


So I see what you mean, Leon, some of the cards that we think of today as N cards were just numbered in 1960.



On page 11 Burdick has a section headed Listing Style. In it he actually mentions that the initial letter in the listing identifies card type, "except Section 5 (19th Tobacco inserts) which is without a letter." sic.


My catalog is a 1960 one. I had another but traded it for some E cards several years ago, I can't recall what year it was.

I still think somewhere along the line that N crept in front of the 19th century tobacco cards.

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Posted By: leon

It's no big issue...it's just cards. I am pretty sure that Bert Sugar gave the N designation to Nineteenth century tobacco cards....take care

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Since you have all of those N cards... maybe you could dig around and find me what I think of as an N1 American Editors of Henry Waterson. About Good is enough for me...

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

I think N561 is the only South American baseball issue with the "N" designation. At least that I'm aware of.

-Ryan

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Sorry to bump this thread, but I just wanted to clarify what I was saying since I did receive an e-mail question about it. My point was that N was not for Central and South American issues, but obviously included Cuba as noted by the N230-3 and N258 issues.

In spite of spending nearly 50 years under Castro, Cuba has not yet been kicked out of North America, unless I missed it.

So maybe Burdick meant "Latin American" or "Carribean" instead of "Central and South American".

-Ryan

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

From Mr. Burdick's "special index" on page 4...

"N C & S Amer. Tobacco 73"


I am editing this 'cause I've looked again at that index page...


There's an N, then a bunch of space before the C & S...


I'll scan that page tonight and get it posted.


FW