Posted By:
Jon CanfieldI want to first say that I really enjoy this debate as I've always wondered why Coupon Type 1's were classified the way they were by Burdick. That being said, I just want to put forth my possible explaination for the thinner stock of the Type 1's that I discussed in the previous thread.
We know from the few surviving Coupon cigarette packs that unlike the majority of the T-206 brands, Coupon's were packaged inside a soft-wrapper pack as opposed to a slide and shell box.
The soft-wrapper packs are much more flimsy than the slide and shell boxes and and can be torn very easily. It is plausible that the thinner stock was used as the heavier stock paper would have torn the soft-wrapper packaging.
It is also worth noting that we already know that the printers modified the printing process during the distribution of the T206 set without any plausible reason; specifically I'm referring to the American Beauty cards. It seems logical that the printers may have just begun to use thinner paper. It's no secret that the AB's are cut thinner than the other T206's. I had always heard that the reason for this was so that the cards could fit into the AB slide and shell cigarette boxes which were slightly smaller than the other slide and shells used to distribute the T206's. We now know, however, that this is not the case. Since the discovery of 20 or so American Beauty slide and shell cigarette boxes has proved that the boxes are identical in size to that of Piedmont, Sweet Caporal, Broadleaf, Uzit, etc, there now seems to be no explaination currently on the table to explain why AB's are thinner.