Allen & Ginter Unopened Box

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Posted By: Marc S.

Saw this cool item while browsing Rick's website. He's a pretty nice guy - and, although his expertise is more in vintage football cards - this seems like quite a great 19th century item. Thought I would post it here....

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Posted By: jay behrens

Great piece, but GAI hasn't exactly had a stellar record in correctly labeling unopened cigarette packs. Will be interesting to ehar what the resident pack experts have to say.

Personally, there is no way I could leave that thing unopened, even if there wasn't an N43 in there, I would be thrilled to pull any card, especially if it was an N36 (Celebrated American Indian Chiefs for those of you new here and don't know that I collect this set and am always looking for these cards)

Have to add a shameless plug since I just got a bunch of scans of n36s I don't have. If you've never seen these cards, check it out. These are easily some of, if not the most beautiful cards ever produced.

http://webpages.charter.net/sabrjay/n36cards.html

Jay

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Posted By: JC

Is there a card in there?

What are the chances it's Baseball?

Nice item though....

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Posted By: Jon canfield

As you see on the front of the box... it says Ligget & Myers... Well, the the N43 were packaged before Ligget & Myers bought the A+G name. In fact, the cards were inserted pre-American Tobacco Company. The box that contaisn the N43 would have said nothing at the bottom of the box. Richmond 20 boxes manufactured between 1890-1910ish would have said "American Tobacco Company". Finally 1912ish and later boxes would say Ligget & Myers. The pictured box is from 1912ish or later...

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Posted By: jay behrens

So, once again, GAI has proven they know absolutely nothing about vintage cigarette packs. They really do need to stop making claims like "possible n43 card inside" when they can't even accurately date the package.

Has anyone talked to GAI about this subject? This doesn't exactly make them look knowledgable.

Jay

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

Jay - I completely agree with you... Sometimes with other packs... mainly the T-206 issues, the overprints on the tax stamp can be difficult to decipher. However, for this pack, it would only take a 10 second google search for anyone to figure out Ligget & Myers wasn't around during the N43 time period.

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Posted By: Cycleback

I beleive that Jon's conclusion may be correct. While Allen & Ginter and Liggett & Myers were very old companies, I believe that Liggett & Myers would not have not have produced this brand until after the 1911 Court Decision that cut up the American Tobacco Company. The decision gave each of several smaller companies, including Liggett & Myers, jurisdiction of specific brands ... At the least, I beleive that the box is is newer than 1888-9.

The rule of thumb when bidding on an antique cigarette pack is to assume that there is not going to be a trading card inside, much less a T206 or Allen & Ginter baseball card. It's best to assume that that Sweet Caporal pack will be a pretty display piece next to your T206s and T205s and nothing more.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

to be fair.........I emailed the thread to GAI. Their response, from Mike Baker is outlined below. I do not know 'RICK' to pass this on to him. If someone could.......

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From: "Mike Baker" <mbaker@gacard.net>
Date: 2004/04/01 Thu PM 03:06:15 EST
To: <autograp@bellsouth.net>
Subject: RE: Tobacco pack grading and identification......


Hi,

Do you know where I can contact the owner of this item. I appreciate you bringing this to our attention, we make every effort to ensure our product is correctly labled and accurate. Once again thank you.

Best,


Mike Baker
Director of Authentication
mbaker@gacard.net
(949) 474-1557


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p.s. I have NO ties to GAI nor do I have the first GAI graded card in my collection......just thought it would be fair to send them the thread and see what happened........I'm still on the SGC train.....

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Posted By: Bill Cornell

http://www.mintstateinc.com/

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

the man........will forward to Baker......
Tom

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Posted By: hankron

..

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

I'm always impressed with the resources of this board!

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Posted By: hankron

For dating unopened cigarette or tobacco packs, you look at a combinination of the brand (Piedmont, Sovereign, etc), tax stamp (if present) and the manufacturer (for example, 'Piedmont brand by Liggett & Myers'). While looking at a single quality (brand, stamp or manufacturer) is rarely reliable in pinpointing a pack's date, the combination of the three can. For example, even without an overprinted date on the tax stamp, certain 'T206-brand' unopened packs can be dated to the desirous 1909-11.

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Posted By: Jeff M.

this is not the site to "Tinker" with your "Johnson".