Colgan's Tins...............

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

Okay, not cards but what the cards came in.............
I have (7) DIFFERENT colgans tins. Different solely based on both the color and on the printing info on the back of them. Can anyone confirm the 'Sterling Gum' in Green to match the Sterling Gum in pink pictured at the bottom of the picture? Anyone have anything different than the (4) types pictured.........

#1..........Colgan Gum, Louisville, with printing around the rim
#2..........Colgan Gum, Louisville, no printing around the rim
#3..........Autosales Gum, New York, with printing around the rim
#4..........Sterling Gum, New York, no printing around the rim

Also....both Autosales Gum & Sterling Gum say 'successors to Colgan'. Anyone know which came first....Autosales or Sterling? Or did Colgan split into two?

Thanks..................bear with me on the large photo.....

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Here's mine -



Anyone want to try some 98 year old gum?

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Posted By: John S

Tom,

Rhett informed me of the existence of the Sterling tin but your scan was the first image that I have ever seen (of either flavor).

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Posted By: Steve Murray

Like Dan's, Louisville, no printing around rim bottom. However it does, unlike Dan's, have printing around the "rim" of the lid.

Reads: "Copyright 1910 by Colgan Gum Co. Incorporated"

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Very nice tin collection, Tom. Thanks for posting.

Tom, my understanding was that Mr. Colgan, a Louisville pharmacist or drug store owner, bought a bunch of chicle, a railroad car load of it, in Louisville, with no idea what he'd do with it. He added flaver to get folks to chew it. Started the company, then eventually sold it to Autosales Gum of New York. So I'd think Autosales antedates Sterling.

The 4 I have are below (I think these are all I have).

I've always fretted about the super-faded Violet tin that is faded to green. I don't think it was sunlight, the fading is uniform to the top, sides, and bottom.

About 20 years ago when I started hunting for my first of these, I just knew I'd find one in an antique mall here in Kentucky, what better item for a lady to keep a few buttons in than one of these tins. I've looked and looked, but have never seen one in any Kentucky antique mall.

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Posted By: Richard Dwyer

Dunno where I got this info, but here it is:

If it has a 1910 copyright then it is good, because the "Colgan Co." was bought out after 1910 and before the end of their card promotion. I am not sure people care too much about whether a card actually came in the tin or not-they are all pretty similar. It is near impossible to tell the exact date the tins were produced. However, from personal research and experience...if on the back the tin says "Autosales Gum Co of New York -Successors of Colgans..." then these tins included the Tin Tops (not sure about the Red Borders). I know this because I have found 3 different Tin Tops cards still in their containers (all at different locations at different times, one still had a stick of gum- so it was "as issued") and each one was in the "Autosales" tin. I have never found a Red border in the tin still so I don't know who issued this set. But it appears that Autosales (not Colgans) produced the Tin Top set. I have never found a E254 in an autosales tin, but they may exist as when Autosales bought out the Colgans Co. they may have still had some leftover "stock"(merely theoretical). They may have done this as the Autosales tin is more common than the TinTops cards themselves.

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Posted By: dan mckee

Crap I thought I had all variations of these, now I have to dig them out. I do have a full can with 10 pieces of gum and a spacer. Very cool post!

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Posted By: Jimmy

I have never seen the original gum before, sure looks 100 years old

very interesting post and am not sure I have see this many different types of tins at one time

Jimmy

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Richard, I believe I wrote that a couple years back on the forum. I still have not found a Red Border still in the package so I am unsure about what type of tin they were produced with. The Tin Tops were made with Autosales tins (I have found several still wih their original tins), however, as the Autosales tins are hardly rare (unlike the Tin Tops cards) the Autosales Co. may have continued to sell their product at the end without any cards at all--presumably just like they did before they began putting ball-players pictures into tins in 1909.

The rarest of all the tins is the Sterling Gum tins, I have owned onl a small handful of those but not currently. I seem to remember having a Mint Stirling tin along with at least 2 Violet ones. When I first started collecting Colgan's I didn't care much about the tins, and sold them whenever I got them, now I have a small collection of 15-20 of them (not one of which is a Sterling unfortunately). I'll add that Sterling is the company that produced the "Gold Tip Chewing Gum" that you see boxes of at nearly every antique show, I also believe they are the company that first marketed Dentyne as well. If I was to guess I would say Autosales came before Serling but it could just as easily be the other way around.

-Rhett

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Posted By: Lyman

Yes, Tom, "Sterling" tins for the Mint Chips were produced although it remains uncertain whether any of them contained cards.

We are planning to publish a comprehensive article on the Colgan's sets written by John Spano (with input from Rhett and others) which is now tentatively scheduled for Old Cardboard Issue #19 (Spring 2009). It will include images of all eight known variations of Colgan's tins (including both Violet and Mint chip tins produced by Sterling) and much more.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

always comes through in the end..............guess I need to search out that Sterling tin.........

I have about 25 tins total, about 2/3 are pink, 1/3 green. Just happened that way I guess because I don't think either color is particularly scarce. I have 7 of the 8 and I have dupes of 6 of the 7 that I already have. Only a single pink sterling though. About 5-6 Autosales and the rest are all Colgans.......

Of all the ones I have, I have but a single example that doesnt have printing on the outside rim of the lid (a pink Colgans). All others, green & pink, have the printing on the lid.

I picked up a fantastic billhead for Colgan's this weekend at a flea market in town here with both the pink & green tins pictured. Colgan's was selling boxes of the chips to someone in Tennessee. Was really glad to get it. I have a bunch of Colgans billheads, trade cards and other stuff but mostly for other products like Taffy Tolu.....

As was stated earier, I've combed antique malls & shops, flea markets and most every other type of venue around here for 20-25 years since I could drive and have NEVER picked up a single tin from them.

There has been but a single baseball card dealer in town that EVER had any Colgan's from a find and they were so chewed up you couldn't even hardly read them. Find THAT very odd.

With the three different types of Colgan's.........E254 SOTD, E270 Red & E270 Tin Tops, I begin to wonder if the E254's were in the 'Colgans' tins, and the two versions of E270's were maybe in the Autosales (Tin Tops maybe?) and Sterling (Reds maybe?).

I will post some photos of other Colgan's items in a second here.......

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

Louisville Colonels program that I have................

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

that the billhead refers to..........NO, I don't have this...........

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

and NOPE.......don't have this one either!

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

sorry so many pictures but hopefully people like 'em...........I'll stop now.........

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Posted By: Jeremy

Tom - Keep em coming ! Love the pictures... Thank you for sharing -- I dug out my 5 Tins and I have 2 Autosales (Green and Pink) and 3 Colgans (2 Pink, 1 Green). Four of them have the writing around the rim and the Food & Drug Act info on the bottom as well. I do have a Green one that does not have any writing around the rim w/ no Food & Drug Act info on bottom. Is it possible, that the tins with no writing of the food and drug act & Info on the rim are the earlier tins ? These look like an initial issue from their plain-ness... I am merely speculating and this is probably documented... One side note, I bought this Green Colgan tin w/ no writing around rim, etc. w/ a Nashville Colgan Chip w/ it. (This was my first tin I purchased only b/c it had the Nashville Player I was looking for...) The tin came from a older one owner fella who had the tin and chip for decades...

Thanks again for this Great Thread !

~ Jeremy ~

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Good stuff Tom! You'd think since you're in Louisville that this stuff would be plentiful, but I know how you feel. Trying to find stuff for the local baseball teams is near impossible. I still have yet to ever see a program for a Lincoln club pre-1947...and other than the war years Lincoln had a professional team nearly every year since 1886. I look everywhere for that kind of stuff and it is nowhere to be found.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Tom, the most interesting thing about your program (from 1910) is that two of the subjects pictured on the bottom row were not produced with the regular E254 Stars Of The Diamond chips and are 2 of the only "exclusive" E270 Red Borders (produced after 1910). Perhaps they in time will have been found to have been produced with the E254 set, but I think that is doubtful at this point, that checklist has been pretty firmly established for a while (unlike the Tin Tops, and to a lesser extent the Red Borders.)
-Rhett

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Posted By: jim

tin that held the boxes that held the tins

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

Same deal with Louisville Colonels pre-Pee Wee Reese...........
Never found anything here before about 1939 or so. Have a couple.....1917 & 1910 or so but bought off ebay.............