(Honus Wagner) CIGAR BOX

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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.

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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.

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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.