Open a pre-war pack of cigs, what set would I get?

[Jeremy102175]

With some tobacco companies issuing issuing multiple sets during the same year is there a way of knowing what set the pack would contain? For example, if I opened a pack of Piedmont cigs in 1911, would there be a way to tell if it contained a T205 vs a T206 card? Sorry if this is an obvious question. I tried searching the forum with a few combination of keywords but didn't see anything. Thanks!

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Jeremy102175

With some tobacco companies issuing issuing multiple sets during the same year is there a way of knowing what set the pack would contain? For example, if I opened a pack of Piedmont cigs in 1911, would there be a way to tell if it contained a T205 vs a T206 card? Sorry if this is an obvious question. I tried searching the forum with a few combination of keywords but didn't see anything. Thanks!

With enough money and time I am sure you could image/scan via some method to determine if a card was inside and what it is, but the honest answer is "no".

The evidence suggests cards were not a constant - a brand didn't pack cards into every pack for 1 year+ at a time. Production runs were fairly brief, with many fairly common sets being packed in brief periods of time, sometimes only a day or two as we learn from the Posey letters. While production runs were massive (we have them for some non-baseball sets, with T225-1 possibly being the best documented) there is not evidence that every pack had a card for extended periods of time. A Piedmont pack could have a bird, a fish, a baseball player, or even nothing depending when the order was placed and the lot that happened to be shipped to fulfill that order. If you look at how common a card is and its print run or time issuance frame for the sets we have documentation on, we can see that it is unlikely there was a card packed in 365 days a year in most brands, likely not for any.

If you cracked a big carton or box of packs shipped to a jobber, you would find very heavy duplication. While we think of these cards in terms of sets and series, the evidence suggests many of them were issued in small waves of not many different subjects. Even 50 card series were likely 2 waves of printing and issuance. Sets could be and were released and rereleased multiple times, sometimes months apart even within the same brand.

A lot of hobby knowledge doesn't really align with the primary sources we have found.

[Musashi]

You would need the information off the tax stamp in order to make an educated guess. I'm pretty sure there is a thread here somewhere with more detailed information

[Jeremy102175]

That's fantastic information, I really appreciate!