Bien produced a map for the Interior Department showing the "regions producing the principal types of tobacco" as part of the tenth census, which would have been a few years before the Buchner cards.
https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0
An 1898 edition of
Profitable Advertising (
https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0) reports:
"The well-known lithographic house of Julius Bien & Co., New York, lately executed one million sheets for the American Tobacco Company. It is easier for the average person to state this fact than it is for him to comprehend the size of such an order, or the amount of labor involved in executing the same".
In 1912, Bien & co. patented a number of cigar brands I am not familiar with, listed on page 691 here;
https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. They appear in other annual reports recording their rights to slogans and names for other non-tobacco products.
They appear to have had financial issues with creditors in 1914, that made its way to the New York Supreme Court. A single creditor claimed over $65,000 owed to him. Companies assets were assessed at about $39,000. Perhaps one of our lawyers may make better work of this than I.
https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. It seems at this time Bien's son and namesake and a Franklin Bien, who may be another son, were running the show. Included in the records are plenty of itemized jobs and payments to Liggett & Myers, for cigar labels, "dancing inserts" and more. Some single tobacco jobs netted as much as $22,500, which is a lot of money for a print job in 1914. It is a lengthy read, and I have not read the entire text yet.
It seems clear and evident this firm had deep relationships in the tobacco industry and decades of partnering with the leading tobacco firms.
Fullgraff worked directly for American Lithography, Brett, Bien, and American Tobacco at different points in the 1890's-1910's. He seems to have continued to do business with all of them before and after his direct employments, a cross-industry project manager and networker for whom what we might now call conflicts of interest seem to have been his desirable asset.