[Al C.risafulli]

Hey All!

For a guy who is lucky enough to get to do hobby research all the time, this was among my favorites.

But it also brings up an issue, one that I've been talking about incessantly for quite some time.

When I had all my research together on this, I immediately reached out to the editor of the Standard Catalog, who reviewed it and made the editorial decision to update the Catalog with the new set name.

Today, there is no resource like this that I'm aware of. There is no central place to report new discoveries, new checklist additions, new sets, variations, and the like. To my knowledge, there has not been an update to the Standard Catalog in nearly a decade.

Meanwhile, if you submit an HD Smith card to a grading company, they will grade it as a Scrapps Tobacco card. Some auction houses and ebay listings still call them Scrapps Tobacco.

It should be common knowledge at this point that these cards are HD Smith & Co. I made this discovery almost a decade ago and published it on the LOTG Blog and via Broadcast email to LOTG customers at that time. That year at the National, I presented my findings at the Net54 dinner. The Standard Catalog updated that year, and REA began using the actual name at the same time.

Part of the reason to disclose this research as widely as possible is so that other hobbyists can expand on this research, so we can all learn more. For instance, this is a GUM CARD ISSUE. An interested collector might be able to tell us when the HD Smith cards were distributed, relative to the G&B issue. What are the first gum cards? G&B, or HD Smith? An interested collector might be able to research how the gum and cards were packed - in tins? Wrappers? How were they advertised?

The more widely this information is disseminated, the more collectors become aware of it, and the more they can dig in and do more research to expand on what's already known.

The hobby needs a regularly-updated Standard Catalog.

-Al