Red Sun - Is it really a Louisiana exclusive?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Pretty amazing collection!

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that I have seen way more Red Sun pugilists than ballplayers.

I don't really know the baseball's as well to estimate, but pop reports are very very similar between T211 and T226. The supply in Red Sun boxers has been very high the last couple years due to a couple sell-offs of collections, which is how I built this many up. There was a pretty sizable supply of them in 2011-2013 range as well. People have tended to build up a number and then sell them off, so we see the same handful of copies cycling every few years. I think been more stacks like I have with the boxing, than with the baseball where there is a lot more of the cards in type collections rather than in set collections. I still need a T211 type someday.

I note the boxers do not come with the 'fat borders' that you see on the baseball subjects, like the three shown here. Even your handcut or trimmed Babb has significantly thicker borders. I like the thick borders.

I would estimate no more than 30 copies each of the white boxers in the hobby (some of which may be short printed to some extent as well); pop's max out at about 15 and the majority of these in the hobby seem to have entered slabs. Most of these 34 are crackouts. Adam and some of the other boxing guys probably have a better guesstimate than I. Any of of our T211 collectors have population estimates for the Southern subjects? The evidence that the 4 black 'puglistic subjects' were short printed is compelling, I think. It probably indicates some very interesting distribution pattern, but that is conjecture. The sheet layout must have been bizarre.

[Pat R]

It appears that The Universal Tobacco Company was another Tobacco Company that was actually owned by the ATC either from the beginning or a lot longer than it would seem.


Nov 22 1901
The_Gazette_Fri__Nov_22__1901_.jpg

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

It appears that The Universal Tobacco Company was another Tobacco Company that was actually owned by the ATC either from the beginning or a lot longer than it would seem.


Nov 22 1901

This is great. Looks like the formal reorganization in 1904 took considerably longer than I would have expected and they controlled it well before then.

[steve B]

It's a bit amazing just how much ATC controlled.

Outside of that control, just my thinking on distribution. I'd have to really get very far into who was who and how distribution happened in that industry at the time to have much confidence.

I think outside of the ATC influence if there was any outside of that at all, each factory producing a small brand would have a distribution area. Sort of like how some large businesses today have distributors with a territory.
So Red Sun being packed and shipped from a Louisiana factory would have been sent/sold to the distributors for that factory.

If I was running the brand, I'd also want to line up distributors in major cities people local to my region might travel to since they might want to buy a familiar brand on say a trip to NY or Chicago or DC. But not to distributors in smaller cities or towns outside the usual area.

The larger brands would have more national distribution, so no matter what factory produced them, Piedmonts would get shipped to ATC distributors nearly everywhere.

There wouldn't be much reason to pack differently for different distributors. It's much more efficient to pack everything the same. The only exception would be the really interesting T206 note saying packing for not the Philadelphia area.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by steve B

It's a bit amazing just how much ATC controlled.

Outside of that control, just my thinking on distribution. I'd have to really get very far into who was who and how distribution happened in that industry at the time to have much confidence.

I think outside of the ATC influence if there was any outside of that at all, each factory producing a small brand would have a distribution area. Sort of like how some large businesses today have distributors with a territory.
So Red Sun being packed and shipped from a Louisiana factory would have been sent/sold to the distributors for that factory.

If I was running the brand, I'd also want to line up distributors in major cities people local to my region might travel to since they might want to buy a familiar brand on say a trip to NY or Chicago or DC. But not to distributors in smaller cities or towns outside the usual area.

The larger brands would have more national distribution, so no matter what factory produced them, Piedmonts would get shipped to ATC distributors nearly everywhere.

There wouldn't be much reason to pack differently for different distributors. It's much more efficient to pack everything the same. The only exception would be the really interesting T206 note saying packing for not the Philadelphia area.

From what I can tell from the Tobacco journals of the period, factories didn't have set areas of distribution.

There do not seem to be distributors tied to a factory, or distributors at all for the most part. Jobbers are ordering direct with ATC or ATC's subsidiary holding firms like Continental, Lorillard, Anargyros and using an internal network. They seem to have had control of distribution themselves. ATC control of distribution and their network seems to have been one of the major headaches they gave the few independent firms that were still around.

From what I can find, there was national (or at least, broad eastern) distribution of most brands. The exceptions seem to be new brands; where they are given a test market for a limited time to see how they perform and then they either disappear or go widespread (geographically, some of them don't seem to move a whole ton of orders).

It would certainly be easiest to pack the same for everywhere. We have the note about Philadelphia, as I recall Pat has shared some articles before indicating local laws that might have posed problems. Some SP'ing patterns may be indicative of geographic differences (like the racial short printing in T226 Red Sun). I wouldn't say that this is the case, it might be. I'm not compelled that they went to the trouble to issue, say, T206 minor leaguers only in the area of those minor leagues. I don't think anyone has claimed that, but that logic seems to be the only basis for Red Sun being limited geographically (with no evidence whatsoever for the Louisiana exclusive distribution).

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

From what I can tell from the Tobacco journals of the period, factories didn't have set areas of distribution.

There do not seem to be distributors tied to a factory, or distributors at all for the most part. Jobbers are ordering direct with ATC or ATC's subsidiary holding firms like Continental, Lorillard, Anargyros and using an internal network. They seem to have had control of distribution themselves. ATC control of distribution and their network seems to have been one of the major headaches they gave the few independent firms that were still around.

From what I can find, there was national (or at least, broad eastern) distribution of most brands. The exceptions seem to be new brands; where they are given a test market for a limited time to see how they perform and then they either disappear or go widespread (geographically, some of them don't seem to move a whole ton of orders).

It would certainly be easiest to pack the same for everywhere. We have the note about Philadelphia, as I recall Pat has shared some articles before indicating local laws that might have posed problems. Some SP'ing patterns may be indicative of geographic differences (like the racial short printing in T226 Red Sun). I wouldn't say that this is the case, it might be. I'm not compelled that they went to the trouble to issue, say, T206 minor leaguers only in the area of those minor leagues. I don't think anyone has claimed that, but that logic seems to be the only basis for Red Sun being limited geographically (with no evidence whatsoever for the Louisiana exclusive distribution).

The ATC Ledger singles out two areas the state of Ohio and the Philadelphia territory's.

ATC Ohio excluded.jpg

ATC Ohio only.jpg

ATC Phila.jpg

I know I have it somewhere but I couldn't find the Philadelphia law clipping that I saved but I did find this clipping that mentions the "queer" cigarette market in Philadelphia.

Philly The_News_and_Observer_Thu__Jun_29__1911_.jpg

[DixieBaseball]

Is there any other Tobacco Card made or distributed that has Fat Borders besides T211 & T210, in particular Series 8, which mirrors Red Suns ? I find it interesting that T210 Series 6, 1, or 2 for example don't have any Fat Border cards. I think there may be a few Series 3 Fat Borders (will have to dig in and check), which is interesting as they were Southern Texas Leaguers and bordered the Southern Association League/cards. Perhaps this might tell us they were made/distributed somewhere different? (T211 & T210-8 Fat Borders...) Just a random thought... Great Thread, discovery info btw

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

The ATC Ledger singles out two areas the state of Ohio and the Philadelphia territory's.

I know I have it somewhere but I couldn't find the Philadelphia law clipping that I saved but I did find this clipping that mentions the "queer" cigarette market in Philadelphia.

I know we talked about the Philadelphia problems and shared some clippings over email. I'm digging in my email records. There definitely is some regional packing and issuing differences for premiums based on geography.

I did come across a conversation early last year following up to it. In the testimony of Samuel S. Bloch of Bloch Brothers, he gives some rather suspicious statements that the trust is not hurting independent makers, and that he even sells to United Cigar Stores (an ATC owned outlet). He insists that his companies "Mail Pouch" scrap brand that competed with Polar Bear had had its sale steadily increase even as Polar Bear became popular, "except during the period when the 'exclusive' deals of the American Tobacco Co. existed in New England and Philadelphia". He also states that he, Bloch, had been the first to include coupons with tobacco. He testified at request of the ATC. March 7, 1908 US Tobacco Journal (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0)

I remember there were Pennsylvania (or Philadelphia; sometimes it is hard to discern if a report is actually discussing the city government or the state government located in the city) specific laws on coupons in this period that you found.