E92 Crofts Cocoa is really F211 ?

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Posted By: leon

I generally go by the ACC to classify my cards. Sometimes I think things sort of start rolling along and no one really ever questions them. I am curious what others think about this. This is page 101 from the American Card Catalog, Jefferson Burdick revised last in 1960. I have updated my own personal web page to reflect this..... though I am not going to be so pompous as to think everyone should change their category....as it does say "see list e92". I am calling it F211 unless there's a good reason not to..(to not confuse anyone maybe it could be F211/E92 ?)..And a good reason is not "it's always been done that way"..at least to me it isn't....Anyway, kind of fun to debate stuff like this....

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Posted By: Richard

Leon,

I think according to your photocopy of the ACC posted, F211 refers to Hires Root Beer. The ACC designation was left blank for Crofts Cocoa (see line on left) which probably means "listed under E92 if you were looking in this location of the catalog in error"

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Posted By: leon

E is early candy and gum cards....F is beverages & desserts, excluding tea and coffee...that's the reason I thought it would be an "F" also....


edited to be a little more specific

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Posted By: cmoking

it looks to me that the Croft's Cocoa line has nothing to do with F211. It was inserted there because it was baseball...and told people where to look. The dash "-" in front of Croft's Cocoa shows it is a different entry than F211. An entry was placed here to let people know where to look, in case they looked under Beverages and Desserts for the Croft's Cocoa cards.

Edited to add: IMO, trying to classify Croft's Cocoa as F211 is a mistake, unless the Croft's Cocoa cards are identical to the Hires Root beer cards (which I assume they are not). If you wanted to get cute, you could say they are F211A or F211.5, but I don't think many would agree with that either.

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Posted By: Seth B.

I have to agree with king that it would be a mistake: the E92s are all on the same card stock, and the front images are the same, just the backs differ. This differs from, say, E106 which has the same front, but the stock and production is obviously different. I think the Croft's are a subset of the larger "E92," distributed with different sweet products. Maybe calling them "caramels" is misleading, but they're closer to the other E92s by far than to the Hire's root beer cards.
Leon, I see from your website that you have a Croft's cocoa bottle, the exact one from the backs of the cards. But do we know exactly how the cards were distributed with the cocoa? I mean, they weren't just stuffed into the bottle, were they?

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Posted By: leon

Like I said I don't expect anything to be changed...I am only bringing this subject up for debate, and have personally changed it on my site. I am not convinced yet that it's not an F. Under E92 the catalog says

E92- Baseball Gum (50) Dockman, Croft and Allen, Nadja......... .20 (kind of a low value by today's standards)


So the only place it is mentioned is in the F section and it's not an F series?.... I am willing to change my mind if I'm proven wrong (probably will be) ....but so far I haven't seen it....keep going

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Posted By: dan mckee

I don't see what is wrong? The ink obviously just ran out on the printing, it is an F211-2.

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Posted By: leon

Thanks Dan....though I think you might be making jest ..Maybe I will go back to the old E card series but not sure yet...fun to think about ..... One that I recently spoke with Lyman about was an esoteric series they had not gotten on the Oldcardboard site...it was F66 BB, Sacramento, Hughs Frozen Confection 1940

which is another cool PCL series....and rather scarce...

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

LEON

If the back is in Black it's an F (Cocoa drink)

If the back is in BLUE it's an E (Candy)





Let's face it guys....the E92 designation can be most confusing.
But, thanks to Leon we are smartening up on this set.

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Posted By: leon

I am aware of the Croft's and Allen cards coming in black, red, or blue...and as can easily be seen on my website. I am only aware of Crofts Cocoa being in black.....but I appreciate the compliment....I'm just stirring the pot a little....keeps things interesting....

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Posted By: Scott Mosley

Hi Leon,

Interesting topic and I know you are having some fun with it.

Let me give you the obvious answer that they belong with E92 but I'll give a different reason than you might expect.

Even though Crofts Cocoa cards are known as such and prominently display the Cocoa Jar advertisement on the back, I think many often overlook the fact that these cards are actually advertising for Montague & Co.

Montague & Co. was a candy manufactorer in the Philadelphia area and did indeed have a storefront listed in the Philadelphia City Directories at 11 South 15th Street in the 1910-1911 timeframe.

Here is a picture of their plant circa 1916



Obviously, people associate the cards with Croft & Allen because of the picture of the Crofts Cocoa jar on the reverse but if you consider the fact it is really advertising for Montague & Co, then the "E" classification fits.

Regards,

Scott

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Posted By: robert a

Leon,

Nice topic.

I think there are a few in-betweeners like your e94 sponge cake overprint.

Rob

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Posted By: Millerhouse

Leon,

While you're scanning your old American Card Catalog, why not post page 192? It suggests for inclusion within the designation Y95 the set of 19th Century Detroit and St. Louis baseball player scraps to which Lew Lipset applied the wacky misnomer of "Scrapps Tobacco."

Dan

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Posted By: leon

Nice pic...thanks for sharing. Let me throw a little more fuel into the fire... so to speak. The Crofts Cocoa jars I have, dated 1901 and another with the Food Act of 1906 imprinted on it , with a copyright of 1901... (so had to be 1906 or later), say that they are from the Croft and Allen Company, Philadelphia. Not sure if they got bought out or what.....but these cocoa jars, with similar graphics to the cards, were put out by Croft and Allen Co.....
best regards

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Posted By: Cobby33

So....A couple of interesting points come up:

(a) How were the Croft's Cocoa cards distributed?

(b) If they are an ad for Montague, why the Croft's on the back? Did Montague sell Croft's?

Some interesting cocoa for thought...

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Posted By: joe

Leon, I have a copy of the 1953 ACC and none the F series matches your F series from 1960. So did Burdick completely revise the book? I will admit I am no expert with the ACC cataloging. I might be missing something, not as detailed as some on this board.

Joe

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Posted By: Scott Mosley

From the limited amount of information I could find out about Montague & Co. they seemed to have one "plant" but several retail stores at various addresses around the Philadelphia area during the period.

I don't think that it is unreasonable that Montague & Co. would sell a competitors product at their retail stores (such as Crofts Cocoa) especially if they didn't make a competing Cocoa product.

And it wouldn't surprise me if the cards were made available from the various retail stores where you could stop by and get a cup of hot Crofts Cocoa straight from their fountain as the back of the cards state.

Just my theory... nothing to prove it (yet)

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Posted By: leon

I am certainly no expert at this stuff but it's fun to theorize and so forth. As for the ACC I made sure I looked and saw the revision date...and it's 1960 ....this copy I have was originally reprinted by Richard Gelman...He says..to quote

" The American Card Catalogue is now available once again. After receiving so many requests, the original text has been reprinted exactly as it appeared in the last edition (1960), along with the original prices."

So if yours says something other than what I scanned, and is a copy of the ACC, then I would say it changed.....but who am I to question?

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Precisely one of the problems, Leon.
Who is anyone? Yet there many faults in the ACC designations.
But who can actually implement a change?
And how does one go about it?

Ok, fill out a change request form. But then where do you submit it?

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Posted By: joe

Leon, here is my copy. Does not have any F200 series at all. For example, I see your copy has F101 as Flags and Scenes mine has F101 as Famous Airplanes. So, it looks like a lot of the book was completely changed. If these scans are to big or cause trouble just delete.

Joe

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Posted By: Tony Andrea

Since were on the subject of Crofts Cocoa's.
Thought I would share some pics.

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Posted By: cmoking

Just following Tony










Quan, you happy now?

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Posted By: quan

the point of showing e92 cocoas scans is the back so we can see all how weird and miscuit that little jar can be! if ur just showing front scans they might as well be ur dockmans . i would love to join in and show my e92 cocoa cobb but i don't have one.

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Posted By: Richard

Wow! A topic that I absolutely love!

First a few comments/opinions -

Seth - I believe that the 4 e92 fronts are all the same, but the fronts of the later issues such as e106, t216 and d303 are not the same as the e92s. They are very similar, but there are subtle differences such as redrawings, recolorings and missing/adding logos, etc.

Leon - I am not sure if you are just kidding about the F211 designation, but it looks pretty clear that Burdick meant for F211 to represent Hires Root Beer. I can see your argument for Crofts Cocoa being an F issue, and perhaps Burdick wanted to add the designation, but never assigned the F number. Perhaps he just put it in the catalog version that you have under "F" as a placeholder until he could get more input from fellow collectors. But it seems clear with the line to the left that there is no F designation assigned for Crofts Cocoa.

Scott - your research is great stuff! I agree with your premise that Montague & Co. was selling Croft's & Allen Cocoa at their retail establishment. I don't believe that Croft's was a competing company. I think that their cocoa product complimented whatever else Montague was selling at their locations. Just a guess, like yours. We have both been chipping away at this stuff for a while

Some items that have been acquired along the way:

Crofts Cocoa Bottle:



Crofts Cocoa Tin:



Crofts Cocoa Trade Cards:



Picture of Croft & Allen factory on back of candy tin:



Small "candy" spoon with "Montague & Co" stamped into the base of the spoon and "Crofts" embossed into the handle.

This last piece is the best indicator that perhaps serving Crofts Cocoa or Crofts Candies in Montague & Co stores was a joint venture or business alliance?

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Posted By: Matt

Leon this is a E249 wouldn't this be listed as a "F" card also?

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Posted By: Scott Mosley

Richard - Didn't your wife tell you to stop collecting all of those nasty old Cocoa encrusted jars and tins a while back?

Matt - Neat card. I have an E249 as well but mine has the coupon detached, unfortunately.

I do have the booklet which is advertised on the back of the E249, however.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

King is clearly right, the catalog just has a cross-referenceto E92 under F211 (baseball players in the beverage category) in case someone happened to look for Crofts under beverages instead of candy, which would not have been illogical to do. I guess it's debatable whether Burdick's classification was correct, but I see no other way to interpret the catalog.

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Posted By: leon

I am going to put this back to E92 but I don't think it's clear cut.....And Burdick deviated from "e" for early candy and gum to include this beverage issue. It's not the first time.....I am going to pick a few more out to talk about too....but those will be for new threads...Thanks to all who gave thoughtful input....BTW, I have a very cool wooden box with Crofts and Allen mfg plant on it that I might post.....but it's at home and I am not...regards

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Posted By: cmoking

Richard, great stuff!

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Posted By: Richard

1) Who believes that E92s should be broken down into 4 separate sets with 4 separate ACC numbers?

2) Who believes that there are actually 6 different sets, all with the same fronts but with different back variations (dockman, crofts candy, crofts cocoa, nadja, e101, e102)?

My opinion:

1) E92 should be broken down into 4 separate sets, each with its own number

2) E101 and E102 are no more of a different set than any of the e92 individual sets

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Posted By: Bob

I agree 100% with cmoking. The Croft's Cocoa designation is not an F211 but rather included in this way to let anyone searching for card numbers of beverage drinks to go to the E92 designation to find the CCs which are not included in F211. They might have done a better job of pointing this out, but it is obvious to me that is what they have done.

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Posted By: cmoking

I agree with Richard. But that won't stop me from collecting a set of E92 images, even with E101 and E102 cards mixed in.

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Posted By: leon

I will concede Crofts Cocoa is an E92....Now we all know that cocoa is early gum or candy.... at least a few folks were open minded about it and of course those weren't the lawyers....

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Seems to me that Crofts Candy cards are E92, and may need an extention with a dash. And that Crofts Cocoa REALLY IS F211.

It seems some collectors don't want their cards to be "F" cards, and would prefer them to be "E" cards... but that seems incorrect. Kinda like folks who have lots of money tied up in cards, so they feel better if they consider that an "investment".

Ted Z has clearly stated the difference above, notwithstanding what slab businesses think.

Frank.

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Posted By: Richard

So, Leon, who was this Burdick guy anyways? and why do we follow his book and classifications when they are so full of errors?

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Posted By: Bob

Lawyers tend to be very open minded, we have to be able to argue either side of a case depending upon the client and his interest(s). I know your post was tongue-in-cheek...

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Richard, seriously, have not heard of Jefferson Burdick??

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Posted By: leon

Yes, it was tongue in cheek....seems like you lawyers like to hang out together ... and of course I have no ill will towards lawyers. You guys are a must in our society. If I was smarter, and would have stayed out of trouble, I might have been one. As for Crofts Cocoa being "gum or early candy" I will let ya'll try to prove that one.....and I am not "necessarily" saying Burdick didn't classify Crofts Cocoa as an e card but I am not 100% convinced either....though I have changed it back on my website to be an e card.....

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Frank W.

You beat me to "the Punch"......Richard has to be a relative "newbie" to make
a crack like that. Of course he doesn't yet understand the "dinosaurs" in this
hobby.....but, simply thrives on being a "contrarian".

Frank....Also, thanks for "ditto-ing" my eary comments on this thread regarding
Crofts differences. And, I really appreciate the posts from Scott Mosley, who
has contributed some great backgound information on this subject.

T-Rex TED

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Posted By: Elliot

Pretty clear from the ACC page that it can't be a F211. Now a F-unc is a whole different story. I think a reasonable argument can be made that Burdick did not list the card seperately under the E category, and only referenced to the E92's (under the F's) to show that the front was similiar to an E-92. Since he never assigned a particular number to the cards they would be F-unc.

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Posted By: Josh K.

Frank and Ted,

Though Im sure he can speak for himself, Richard is far from a newbie and is, in fact, quite knowledgeable. I believe that his comment was intended to be very much tongue and cheek (hence the smiley face at the end of the sentence).

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Posted By: Richard

Frank and Ted,

I tend to speak for myself a little more than I should, which is why I overpay on cards from people like Josh - so they would feel obligated to speak for me

And, yes, the and the end of the Burdick comments was to indicate that I sometimes know what I am talking about. Only sometimes.

__________________________________________________ __________

edited to add for the dinosaurs (and the fellow newbies):

"If the back is in Black it's an F (Cocoa drink)

If the back is in BLUE it's an E (Candy)"

Crofts Cocoa backed only comes in black

Crofts Candy backed comes in black, blue and red

To say that black is cocoa and blue is candy would be in error.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Josh K.

We fully appreciate the significance of a "smiley face" symbol. However,
Richard's "dig's" (smiley face notwithstanding) are immature and are not
really appreciated. I don't know this guy and I do not care for his "wise-
ass" sense of humor.

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Posted By: quan

i heard with the success of the bluetooth technology and core 2 duo for computers, they're experimenting with a sarcasm-alert device next.

if richard's comments were meant as digs...they were pretty weaksauce. you need to come better than that rman cuz burdick was a GREAT GREAT pioneer in our hobby and no matter what you say my opinion of him will not change.

edited to add the e92s should be separate from the e101 and e102s...no matter what king says . the different e92s are a subset to themselves and i don't see why they should be combined???

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Posted By: cmoking

wow, Ted, a bit sensitive are we?

Quan - the Cobb feels right at home! he doesn't care that his roommates have different backs than him. He's always been a bit different than his teammates anyway.

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Posted By: fkw

I have found that there are a few sets could have 2 ACC ID's.

(off the top of my head)

1887 Tobin Litho trade cards (H804-21, H891)
1936 Wide Pens "type D" (R314D, V352)
E92 Croft Cocoa (F211, E92-3)
1926-29 PC Back Exhibits (PC792-2, W461)
Balt News E94 style (M131, E94)
Val Decker Postcards (H802, PC786)
1949 Sunbeam Bread Sacramento (PC759, D315-3)
1915 Sporting News Postcards (M101-3, PC757)

Also the ACC lists Cuban/Central American cards with a "N" and we all use "N" for 19th Century Tobacco. So there are some problems that one day should be cleaned up.

1924 Diaz Cigarettes cards are N258 in the ACC

These cards below are actually listed as N230-3 in the ACC

N230-3


These cards below are listed as N561

N561

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Why anyone would attack him for his posts on this thread is completely beyond me. Anyone who missed the fact that he was just offering some wry humor is either not very bright or not paying attention.

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Posted By: Zach Rice

Thanks for the post Frank, I had no idea these were N561s. I really like them, they're kind T209-2ish.

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Posted By: Josh K.

Wow, aren't we a bit wound up?

I couldnt agree with King and Peter more on this one. The only "digs" that I see were those made by you Ted. Moreover, it seems that Richard may know his croft's cards a bit better than you and others who have posted on this thread.

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Posted By: leon

I think we all need to be careful about our sarcasim on the board. Honestly, I couldn't tell Richard was just being sarcastic either.....it's hard to tell when all we have are keystrokes and an impromptu smiley face to look at. Since Burdick didn't specifically name the Crofts Cocoa's in a set I like Elliots idea of "F-unc." It makes more sense. For now I will go with the flow and leave them as E cards....as I have been sarcastically told that we all know early candy and gum equals cocoa ....