Posted By:
J HullTed,
I like your explanation for the quotation marks around Coupon on the T213-1's. If Coupon was a relatively new brand, that makes sense. I'm not sure the quotes are signifying a lack of a registered trademark as much as they represent an attempt to create a trademark through use. In 1910 I think pretty much every purchaser of cigarettes knew that many brands inserted coupons that could be collected and submitted to the company in exchange for "prizes." I'm sure you've seen some of the catalogs from the era detailing the products that could be acquired if one accumulated enough coupons. Coupon the brand was trying to market itself on that notion -- if you buy Coupon brand you will get coupons for prizes. So the quotation marks probably were an attempt to distinguish a trade usage for Coupon as a brand above and beyond the simple and recognized idea of paper tickets in cigarette packs. As you say, once the brand was more established, they dropped the quotation marks.
The same may well be true for the Ty Cobb brand. The brand is different from the man, even though it's an obvious attempt to capitalize on the man's fame and notoriety. So as a new brand, the quotation marks might be an attempt to build brand equity while of course still indicating that the brand should be associated with the idea of Ty Cobb the baseball player.
Jamie