Wrong catalog year on the Obak T212-1's?

[G1911]

Registration dates are pretty conclusive. I think you are onto something Pat.

With a lot of these sets, I have found it much better to simply throw away all extant 'knowledge' about the set and start from zero, because most of what it is said we know is somebody's guess or hobby myth. Little to no actual research was done for the big books, catalogs, and 'general knowledge' that is published and stated around the hobby for most sets.

The tobacco sets seem to generally lag the real world by quite a bit. T220, to use as an example because we have some of the most complete information on it over other tobacco sets, has it's pre-production testing performed in September of 1910, but many of it's backs for active athletes just end in 1909, or even 1908. It wouldn't surprise me if they used rosters from a year before production here.

I can find nothing before the registration. I did find that a May 13, 1910 issue of The Retail California Grocers Advocate publishing the prices (presumably of a case/carton to the retailers, not customer facing) of SF area cigarettes. Interesting Obak got the card premiums at all instead of other brands, looks like a cheap brand introduced for the bottom end of the market.