(Honus Wagner) CIGAR BOX

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Posted By: Jay Miller

REA has found compelling evidence that the Henry Reccius cigar box is from 1919-1926 (see modified auction description), and not from the 1890s. What does this do to the dating for the Henry Reccius card?

edited by leon to make the title correct....at Hal's request...

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

YIKES!!!

That certainly changes things.

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Posted By: leonl

damn the luck...maybe

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Nothing.

It just shows that THIS particular cigar box is from 1919 and is therefore no different than the Sweet Caporal cigarette packages that were sold in 1919 ... many years AFTER the time in which they contained baseball cards.

The presence of a 1919 Sweet Caporal package obviously doesn't mean that they issued the T206 Sweet Caporal cards in 1919. It just means the package is 10 or more years "newer" than the ones that contained baseball cards.

The other known Reccius box does NOT contain any such stamp, so it shows that these cigars were around before these dates.

PSA authenticated and dated the card... and they stand behind their research.

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Research that is based on the Standard Catalog that also states Leaf baseball cards were issued in 1948-1949, AL Fan Craze was issued in 1904, etc. If it is in print does that make it so? You have proved more than once that what we have all accepted as gospel from the Standard catalog, is in fact not accurate.

Time to do your own research on this one.

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Posted By: Runscott

Runscott's computer is acting up but here are his thoughts:

First, the box is for "Honus Wagner" 10 cent cigars, not "Henry Reccius" cigars - quite possibly two different companies. If these two items are going to be tied together as from the same period, you should want to see "Henry Reccius" somewhere on the cigar box.

Second, it is also significant that the cigar box product is a "Honus Wagner 10 cent cigar" and the Henry Reccius trade card is for a "Hans Wagner 5 cent cigar". Seems if they were made by the same company they would be either "Hans" or "Honus", not both. In fact, the Reccius card doesn't mention a "Honus Wagner 10 cent" cigar anywhere, but advertises several other cigars that they make. Important: "Henry Reccius" is a brand, "Hans Wagner" is the company. What company made the cigar box cigars?

Third, the trade card has "Louisville,KY" as the location of the "Hans Wagner" company (manufacturers of the Reccius cigar). Makes sense that they would advertise using a famous person from their city.

Fourth - you should be able to date the Reccius card to a more specific range by using the manufacturer location and phone number, and lithography and printing characteristics.

I never agreed with Hal that this trade card came in a cigar box - thought it more likely that it sat in a stack on a tobacconists' counter. It's also possible that whoever manufactured the box got hold of a trade card and modeled their advertising after it.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Interesting thesis. I guess it is possible that the cigar boxes could have been issued over several decades. I would wonder, if that were the case, how one would know when the cigar box insert card was from. I would also wonder how in depth PSAs research was into the issuance date of the card. My guess is that they did not talk to the good folks at the National Cigar Museum.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I have already done the research, so I know that the Eliott Street address matches where Henry Reccius lived in Louisville in the 1890's.

LOOK CLOSELY at my card:



As Scott points out... the card refers to Honus as "HANS" Wagner, which is what he was called EARLY ON in his career.

SO... the NAME of the cigars is DIFFERENT...

the PRICE of the cigars is DIFFERENT...

and there is NO mention anywhere on the 1919 cigar box of HENRY RECCIUS, who is mentioned PROMINENTLY on my card.

----------------------

Maybe Reccius changed his marketing over the years and removed his name from everything and changed "Hans" to "Honus" by 1919...

or maybe the box was just a knock-off that someone else made later.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Jay:

The good people at the National Cigar Museum know NOTHING about the Honus Wagner or Henry Reccius cigars and have NEVER seen any of these boxes.

The ONLY thing they can tell us is what the TAX STAMP on the REA box means and when it was used.

Kind of like the Postage Stamp museum can tell you when a particular stamp was issued... but they don't know a thing about the letter to which the stamp was affixed.

I wish they did know about the Reccius cards, but I tried them long ago and they were clueless.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Truth is the only thing about the cigar box and Hal's card that matches is the portrait of Wagner, and pictures were recycled forever. Even if the cigar box is ca. 1920, I would say if Hal knows for a fact that Eliott Street was the address for the company in the 1890's, then that is very compelling evidence that the card predates the cigar box by quite a bit. I'm not sure however, how PSA did their research. How many hours is PSA willing to spend to grade a single card? They did in fact tell me the had several people spend hours on my two cricket CdV's, and I was impressed by that. But I'm sure Hal delved into this much deeper. I think the relationship between the card and the cigar box is minimal at best and perhaps they are entirely unrelated timewise.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--I'm rooting for you but I would still be a little nervous. The box may mention Henry Reccius somewhere on the wood where it doesn't show up in the scan. I wonder what that little rectangular label on the front says. If the manufacturer was someone other than Reccius that would be a good thing. Otherwise, I'm not sure the differentiation between Honus and Hans means alot--maybe it does, who knows. The 5 cents price on the box is cheaper than the price on the card. Maybe the card came after the box when prices had gone up. Maybe the card is later than the mid-20's. The fact that the brand may have existed into at least the mid-1920s has to add some doubt to the card dating from the 1890s. When did phone numbers in Louisville add more digits? Could that be used to narrow things down a little?

Barry--If the Elliot Street address was the company address in the 1890s does that tie the card to that date? What if the cigars were issued over many years and the company did not change their address. Couldn't that card have been included in the box in 1908 or 1912? Who knows--which is a big problem if you are trying to call it a rookie card.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Here is another example of a "HONUS WAGNER" cigar box that has been known about for years.



Just like the one in REA, it is NOT from "Henry Reccius."

And just like the one in REA, it is from LATER than 1900.


---------------------------

All we know now is that SEVERAL companies over the years sold cigars using the likeness of Honus Wagner.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jay- That would depend on how Hal dated the Eliott Street address. Were they only there in the 1890's, or did they have an ungoing business from the 1890's on. Hal, I trust you can answer that one. I also have another thought- I remember Hal posted months ago that he felt the card was placed on top of the cigars inside the box, as the dimensions of the card exactly matched the dimensions of the box. If the box in REA is 1919-1927, and I just had a lengthy conversation with Rob and he believes that to be true, then it would have had to originate from a different box to be period. Hunt's at one time had the card and a box- does anyone remember the details regarding that one? That would be very important.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

This one was sold by Hunt's:

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Here is the REA one:

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Definitely two different boxes.

One mentions "5 cents" on the label and the other does not.

They both appear to have the "1919 or later" stamp on the front of the box.

---------------------

But, more importantly, NEITHER mentions "Henry Reccius" anywhere.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hal- that neither mentions reccius is probably a good sign, because at this point I wouldn't want to find too much of a relationship between the box and the card. But that the dating of the box was off by twenty or more years is certainly unusual. What does it all mean?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Jay:

That little black square box on the front of the cigar box is the "Tax Date Information" to which the cigar museum is referring.

If you read it closely on the REA scan, you can see the words match the ones quoted by the cigar museum:

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Posted By: Anonymous

Irrespective of how Hal may have found that that company was at that address in 1897 but not at the later date (which research would be fascinating if Hal would share it, if only because I would have no clue how to even approach such a task), uh, isn't this a regional issue in the truest sense of the word? I had thought from the discussion of Bond Bread cards that at least in some people's minds "true" RCs could not be regional issues. Is there any evidence these were circulated nationally?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Barry:

I think it just means that nobody ever bothered to spend any time researching the age or distributor of these two boxes before today...

so they just assumed that these were the boxes that came from Henry Reccius (since the CARD was known to exist and is clearly from him).

Since these boxes are NOT from Henry Reccius...

it really doesn't matter WHEN they were produced or distributed.

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Posted By: will watson

http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/honu0298.htm

i'm sure most have seen it, but if you haven't it provides an interesting read.

a quote from the article: "The card will be sold with a letter of provenance from Mr. Jesse Hathorn's daughter and a vintage family scrapbook from 1900-15 with many baseball photos and articles."

seems to back up the date of Hal's Wager.

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Posted By: barrysloate

The dating of the boxes doesn't matter with regard to the reccius card, as they seem to be unrelated; but the dating matters to the owner of the box who thought it was ca. 1898 and today found out it wasn't even made during Wagner's career.

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Posted By: will watson

"I had thought from the discussion of Bond Bread cards that at least in some people's minds "true" RCs could not be regional issues. Is there any evidence these were circulated nationally?"

in my opinion, the term "rookie card" only holds weight with postwar issues (when at least one nationally issued set was released a year). prewar distribution is so scattered and inconsistent that, in my opinion, the "rookie card" designation becomes obsolete. i would rather have a first card of a player, regardless of how it was distributed- regionally, extremely limited national distribution, unique, etc- rather than a card that meets hobby "rookie card" definition

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Posted By: PASJD

Will I agree with you and would go even further and say one should collect what one likes rather than try to define "true" rookie cards at any time; just that there was some fairly specific discussion in a prior thread about definitions, with the upshot being that some people didn't feel Bond Bread cards were rookie cards because they were regional only, and I was wondering how that analysis would apply to the 1897 Wagner versus, say, the T206 which I presume was nationally distributed or at least distributed on an order of magnitude different scale.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--Didn't you make the arguement in a prior thread that the card was tied to the cigar box? Wasn't that the reason why the card was not a trade card, because it was distributed with a tobacco product like a card in a cigarette box? Are you now saying that that analysis was wrong? Unless you can definitively tie either the address or the phone number to only pre-1900 times I can see no way to establish that the card was issued prior to 1900.

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Posted By: scott brockelman

regardless of issue date, which IS probably turn of the century 1900, this piece is nothing more than a victorian trade card. a very common merchant item from the 1880's thru 1910 era, heavy paper stock in assorted sizes with the merchants location and products advertised. very common in many, many products of the era.

one need not do much research to find many others that carried baseball caricatures and even used names of major league players in decades prior. by the time this one was produced a litho of wagner in a louisville uniform was available and placed on the ad.

NOT a baseball card as we know them today, nor was it a packaged premium for buying the product as were old judges, mayos, etc of the 19th century, but strictly an advertising piece that was probably distributed from his store.

scott

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Posted By: barrysloate

We've already had threads where we tried to set the parameters of what a baseball card is, and a trade card is loosely a form of a baseball card, though I agree with Scott that the reccius is closer in spirit to a trade card. Is a Boston Garter a baseball card, or an advertising trade card? Same thing.

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Posted By: PASJD

If Scott B. is right and it sure sounds to me like he knows of what he speaks (I wish I were that knowledgeable about something ) then it seems a bit of a stretch to call an advertising piece from a guy's store Honus Wagner's rookie card, by any definition. But as with anything else beauty is in the eye of the beholder and perhaps its uniqueness does in fact make it worth the asking price.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Jay:

I didn't tie the card only to that particular box that appears in the REA auction. I merely pointed out that the card is just the right size to fit into a standard sized cigar box of the era (as I was told by some cigar experts).

I was simply told by them that they believe it would have been an "insert" inside the box on top of the cigars. I believe them, but others may disagree.

This is no different than the Ty Cobb/Ty Cobb back card... where people think it came in the Ty Cobb tobacco tin... but others do not.

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Guess this answers the question...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5189247155&fromMakeTrack=true

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--Is that ebay lot for real?

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Posted By: (Julie)

.............

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Hal,

So the 1920's incarnation of Wagner cigars were $.05 just like most other cigars of the era, but the 1897 ones were $.10?

No wonder they tried, without much success if cigar price is any indication, to resurrect the Wagner cigar of 20+ years earlier. From 1897 to 1900 Hans Wagner was a good baseball player....and a GREAT cigar!

Interesting strategy, though. Use the same imagery of Wagner with the Louisville team, but change the name of the cigars from "Hans Wagner" to "Honus Wagner". That way you can ask half the price of what they sold for 20+ years earlier.

Regarding the Hunt Auction, the picture of the box in your 4:31 PM post (unless you edit your post) shows a box they sold in 2000. In their description they call it "circa 1903", the same year as Wagner's E107 rookie card.

Two years earlier they auctioned your trade card along with the one of the other two known examples of the cigar box (in two separate lots). I believe that box and your trade card were discovered together in Louisville. Correct me if I'm wrong about that because I'm not 100% sure.

So if the box in the Robert Edward Auction is actually post-1919 then there are three possibilities:

1. The REA box is the same one that was discovered along with your trade card. That would seem to point towards a late 1920's date of the trade card due to the price increase from $.05 to $.10.

2. The REA box is not the same one, but is still one of the 3 known examples of the box, all of which seem to date from the same period. This would also point towards a post-1919 date of the trade card. This seems like the most likely scenario to me since the REA box was part of the Halper collection which sold in 1999. Halper may have bought the box in 1998 and sold it in 1999 but it seems unlikely to me.

3. The box that was discovered with your trade card is completely different than the other two and is, in fact, from the 1897-1900 period but no one noticed how different it was and chose to lump it in with the other two examples of the box to come up with a total of 3 examples. It would make sense that this box would be different because the cigars must have been amazing at $.10 a pop in the 19th century. The box could have been much more ornate than the other two. If this is the case and no one noticed it was a different box, then it is defintely possible that the box the trade card was found with is from Wagner's days in Louisville, while the other two boxes are obviously from 20 years later.

I guess you couldn't have picked a better time to start collecting minor league cards with the Baltimore News Ruth being available. Hopefully your Wagner sells on ebay so you can afford it as your description states. I'm sure you plan to fully disclose to the high bidder the possibility of the trade card being produced later than it states on the PSA label and are going to provide them with links to this thread and the box in the Robert Edward Auction. Making it a private auction wasn't to keep others from contacting the high bidder to let them know about the doubts that exist surrounding the trade card, but to keep them from receiving duplicate e-mails that give them the same links and information that you are already planning to share with them.

-Ryan

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Ryan:

There are DIFFERENT levels of cigars... with DIFFERENT quality of wrapper and filler ... and DIFFERENT prices. This was true in 1897... and it is true TODAY.

Just look at my card again and you will SEE that they advertise 5 cent cigars below this Hans Wagner 10 cent special cigar...

which is PROOF that the card was NOT issued at a point in history where there was no longer any such thing as a 5 cent cigar.

In fact, the FACT that the Reccius HANS Wagner was a 10 cent cigar in 1897... and the fact that the generic Honus Wagner cigars on the 1919 REA box were still only a nickel...

is solid evidence in support of them NOT being from the same maker at all.

------------------------

But don't take my word for it... listen to what the Curator of the National Cigar Museum had to say in response to my questions:


From Mr. Hyman:

Dime cigars were considered good cigars in 1900. Cigars sold for every price imaginable but nickle cigars were common goods, domestic and blended cigars, whereas dime cigars would be cuban filler and domestic or sumatra wrapper, a better grade cigar.


From me:

Am I correct in assuming that even though my card has a similar picture as the one on the cigar box... that they are in fact NOT RELATED???


From Mr. Hyman:

That is correct. They are not related. A label, a brand name, a picture...anyone could and would use it. As late as 1979 I interviewed a prominent Penn. cigar broker who had a cigar brand called DUTCH MAID with a full color pirate picture of the OLD DUTCH CLEANSER girl on their label. Not a take off. The EXACT girl from their well known product. "Isn't this copyright infringement?" I asked "Hell yes. But it will take them five years to find out and another five years to make me stop and by then I'll have sold all them damn cigars."
If that attitude was prevelant in the litigious modern day, how much more free do you think people were 100 years ago?


From me:

The 1899 Louisville City directory and the 1900 census both show Henry Reccius as a Cigar Maker in Louisville, does this match what you have on file?


From Mr. Hyman:

Yes. The Federally Assigned number for Henry Reccius was Fact. 45, 5th Dist. KY. By 1893, they were already assigning factory numbers in the 600's in the 5th tax district in Kentucky. So his is indeed a very early number.


From me:

Do you have any specific information on file at the museum as to when Reccius was selling these "HANS WAGNER" cigars mentioned on my card??


From Mr. Hyman:

Nope. The ONLY hope you'd have is if whomever he was making them for advertised them in the local paper. Most cigars were shipped somewhere and Reccius could have made those for someone anywhere in America.
Railroads shipped hundreds of thousands of cigars daily. I've got company records from an upstate NY company that made more than 100
brands selling from Chicago to Boston. The fact that the Reccius name was prominent in 1900 in Louisville ups the odds somewhat that it may have been sold there, but does not make it a certainty.

---------------------------------


Remember, there were two Reccius brothers who PLAYED major league baseball in Louisville in the 1880's and 1890's (John & Phillip), so the family name was HUGE in Louisville in the 1890's.

This fame and the fact that his brothers were former players would have made it VERY EASY for Henry to get unlimited access to the team and to Honus Wagner in order to get his permission to sell the cigars.

Henry Reccius was 48 in the 1900 census, John was 42, and Phil was 38.

Henry was born in Germany in 1852, but came over to America with his parents in 1854 and they settled in Louisville, where John and Phil were later born.

All of the family lived within 2 blocks of each other in and around the "Elliott Avenue" address from 1890-1910 and beyond.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

IMPORTANT NOTE: Henry Reccius was making cigars as FAR BACK as 1870!!


In the 1870 Federal Census of Louisville, Kentucky...

the "Household" is listed as:

JOHN REWCIUS, 51 (born in Nassau, Germany) - Cabinet Maker

SOPHIE REWCIUS, 49 (born in Nassau, Germany) - Keeps house

WILLIAM REWCIUS, 23 (born in Nassau, Germany) - machinist

HENRY REWCIUS, 18 (born in Nassau, Germany) - CIGAR MAKER!!

MIKE REWCIUS, 13 (born in Louisville) - At school

JOHN REWCIUS, 10 (born in Louisville) - At school

PHILIP REWCIUS, 8 (born in Louisville) - at home

-------------------------------


So by 1870, young Henry had gotten into the Cigar business... where he stayed for the remainder of his life...

while his two youngest brothers went on to become Major League Baseball Players for the Louisville Colonels!!

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

THANKS for changin the title guys, since the evidence is stacking up AGAINST this particular box having anything to do with HENRY RECCIUS and his company.

All they share is a common photo to which everyone had access.

Thanks

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Leon--Thanks for changing the title to the thread. Based on what has been said I don't see a direct link between Henry Reccius and the REA cigar box so the cigar box should just be described as a HONUS WAGNER box.

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Posted By: PASJD

Hal I am surprised to see you selling the card, but good luck. From a disinterested outsider's perspective I think it is probably from 1897-99 (the .05 v. .10 argument didn't impress me) but I also think it is a regional card if that matters. Is the T206 next?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

If the Wagner doesn't sell, I will be perfectly happy to keep it forever.

But if it sells and I can't win the Babe...

a T206 Wagner would be nice.

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Posted By: ramram

Considering that there is a phone number on the side of the card, does anybody know when phone numbers had progressed enough to be a four-digit number? Telephones were just being developed in the 1870's and 1880's and inititially required a single button to be pushed. It would be interesting to know if the phone systems had developed into the Louiville area enough to require the four-digit numbers by the late 1890's or possibly not until the 1920's. Does anybody have some old business letterheads from the 1890's that have phone numbers on them?

Rob M.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Rob:

Already tried that.

There are no "phone books" from that time period because there were not too many phones...

but there DEFINITELY were 4-digit phone numbers in Louisville by 1900.

After all, Louisville had phones for a LONG time before 1900, as is evidence by the United States Supreme Court case:

U.S. Supreme Court
CITY OF LOUISVILLE v. CUMBERLAND TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO., 224 U.S. 649 (1912)

On August 17, 1886, the city council passed an ordinance which, after reciting this section of the charter, ordained that the act of the legislature above mentioned, so far as it refers to the use of the streets of Louisville, 'is hereby ratified and confirmed, and the right is hereby granted and confirmed to the said Ohio Valley Telephone Company, its successors and assigns, to maintain a telephone system, and to erect poles and string wires thereon; . . . and to operate its telephone lines over, along, or under any street, avenue, alley, or sidewalk in the city of Louisville.'

The ordinance was accepted, the $50,000 bond was given, and the Ohio Valley Telephone Company erected poles, strung wires, and maintained a telephone exchange in the city of Louisville until January 27, 1900, when it consolidated with the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company.

-------------------------


So Louisville had telephones as early as 1886.

By 1900, there are advertisements in the City Directory with 4-digit phone numbers.

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Posted By: ramram

Hal - You've definitely done your homework!

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

...

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

In fact... the 4-digit phone number is NOT consistent with the 1920's...

when a city the size of Louisville (400,000 people back then) had plenty of telephones.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--So you've established that there were four digit phone numbers in 1900. A four digit phone number only allows 10,000 permutations so that was probably too small for a 400,000 person city, although I have no idea what percentage of the households had phones. So now you have the card bracketed as being issued between the late 1890s and some point before the 1920s. Since these cigars may have been continuously issued how can you assume that the card is from the very beginning of this period? Also, you never answered the question as to why you call this a card and not a trade card if you cannot tie it to being issued with a tobacco product. Do you have any thoughts on this?
This is a great topic with some really interesting research. You are to be congratulated on the work you have done thus far.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hal is the Sherlock Holmes of vintage cards. No stone is left unturned... or is that no turn is left unstoned?

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Posted By: PASJD

I am very impressed with Hal's research too, especially for a plaintiff's lawyer. In all seriousness, I think Hal has built a very powerful case that the card is indeed from the late 1890's, using resources most of us probably never would have thought of. The mystery to me is why amidst this great discussion put it on ebay??

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Posted By: scott brockelman

this from the louisville library:

Dear Scott;

Thanks for using Ask-a-Librarian. We have City Directories in hard copy
from 1902 on-but not for every year. Our phone directories don't start
until 1950. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any directory with G. Henry
Reccius' phone listed. It seems that his business went from 2606 Elliott to
2803 W. Broadway and back.
I would suggest that you contact one of the following to find your answer -
Metro Louisville Archives (502)574-5761 or
University of Louisville Archives (502) 852-6674

Jean Kreke
Telereference Department
Louisville Free Public Library

obviuously he used the Elloitt street location a couple of times over a 20+ year period.

further checking of the above archives may bring a more exact window of when he had that phone number, it may well have been late 1890s, but does not change the fact that the item is an advertising trade card, in no way does it indicate honus wagner as a player with a postion, like other "baseball cards" of the era. just his likeness with advertising for a product using his name.

scott

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

If some people want to consider the Reccius Wagner card a "Trade Card"... then I am not offended in any way.

In fact I am HONORED to have it in the same class with some of the following:


Is the 1869 Peck & Snyder card any less "desirable" just because it is an advertising trade card?

Is the Ty Cobb w/Ty Cobb back card any LESS "desirable" just because it may not have ever been distributed inside T206 tobacco packs?

Is the 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth card any less "desirable" just because it is really just a team schedule?

Is the Boston Garter Joe Jackson card any less "desirable" just because it was an advertising trade card?

Is the Darby Chocolates Ty Cobb card any less desirable just because it was really just the side panel of a box?

Is the Pinkerton Christy Mathewson card any less "desirable" just because it was a promotional item that you had to send in coupons to have it mailed to you?

Is the 1863 Harry Wright "Jordan & Co." card any less desirable just because it is really just a cricket ticket?"

Is the PSA 8 T206 Wagner card any less desirable just because it may have been trimmed from a bigger piece of stock?

Is the 1894 Alpha Photo Engraving any less "desirable" just because only one was issued and it was more of a publicity photo for the studio than a baseball card?

----------------------


ALL of these INCREDIBLE treasures are priceless...

but ALL of them could be considered NOT to be "true baseball cards" under one definition or another.

But I would take them in a heartbeat.

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Posted By: PASJD

If the Boston Garters are "trade cards" then I am all in favor of trade cards too. Although I guess as long as we are on that subject I would be interested in how those with expertise classify them.