Make believe you're an old fashion tobacco salesman .....

[Potomac Yank]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

No the Ty Cobb tin it doesn't include the word smoking.

However if you look at the Penn No.1 tin it says "No Better Smoking Tobacco Can Be Made" and below that "Chews Good Too."

It seems Penn was focused on marketing these two products to smokers first with chewers being a secondary thought.

*

Let's stay with the Ty Cobb Cut Plug Tin.
The predominantly chewing tobacco tin, that during the 1910 period was going through a challenge by the up and coming smokers.
The tin that a few feel were the transporter of the Ty Cobb backs.

Don't you think that the Penn people would have had an ad somewhere in the whole State of Georgia telling folks to pick up a Ty Cobb card with the purchase of a Ty Cobb Cut Plug Tin? ..... even though it's chewing tobacco.

[T206DK]

name recognition in Georgia would have been enough I would think, that and the fact that one ad makes you think Cobb himself approved this "finest tobacco" product. If it were being marketed in other states or nationwide they may have used such an ad promoting a card. I don't think we can ever get inside the heads of the people who thought up this brand and the card itself. We can only use period advertising and the psychology of the times to make a guess as to what was going on.

[Potomac Yank]

Chewing is one of the oldest ways of consuming tobacco leaves. Native Americans in both North and South America chewed the leaves of the plant, frequently mixed with the mineral lime.

The Southern U.S. was distinctive for its production of tobacco, which earned premium prices from around the world. Most farmers grew a little for their own use, or traded with neighbours who grew it. Commercial sales became important in the late 19th century as major tobacco companies rose in the South, becoming one of the largest employers in cities like Durham, NC and Richmond, VA. Southerners dominated the tobacco industry in the United States; even a concern as large as the Helm Tobacco Company, headquartered in New Jersey, was headed by former Confederate officer George Washington Helme. In 1938 R.J. Reynolds marketed eighty-four brands of chewing tobacco, twelve brands of smoking tobacco, and the top-selling Camel brand of cigarettes. Reynolds sold large quantities of chewing tobacco, though that market peaked about 1910.[3]

*

Before, I took my second cold turkey in 1990 ... I use to smoke three packs a day, of the 120mm Long Johns ... to the second puff on the filter ... I am not exaggerating. I had no choice but to stop.
Joe P.

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by Potomac Yank

Don't you think that the Penn people would have had an ad somewhere in the whole State of Georgia telling folks to pick up a Ty Cobb card with the purchase of a Ty Cobb Cut Plug Tin? ..... even though it's chewing tobacco.

First off we know it wasn't only a chewing tobacco. It was sold as a smoking tobacco that we know could also be chewed.

You would think the Penn folks would have advertised the card if they went through the trouble of making it specifically for this product but as someone said in another thread:

"I think we are trying to impute 2010 knowledge and logic on 1910 baseball cards. They will NEVER match." - Jim VB

The advertising we have seen to date is very limited. Only one real advertisement that was repeated for a month.

That advertisement did say: "Now on the market at 10 cents the package."

So we know it went on sale. It just didn't last and didn't even garner a second advertising run which could have included information about the card insert.

[T206DK]

hmmm, maybe the fact that it didn't last long on the market means that the blend was not appealing. Maybe smokers thought it tasted bad, and there weren't enough chewers of tobacco buying it to garner actual production. just a thought

[Potomac Yank]

http://sports.ha.com/common/view_ite...No=19556#Photo

If the smoking tobacco cards, were all in a chewing tobacco tin, wouldn't they all be stained?

[T206DK]

Joe, you might have to think outside the box , so to speak, on this issue. While I have never heard of or seen a Polar Bear card that didn't have some type of stain on it I'm sure it's possible. I still think the cards with no gloss were inserted into something....whether it was a tin of tobacco or a pack that we have never seen I don't know. The Glossy cards , I believe, were most likely an enticement or advertising tool used to either promote the brand to dealers or entice customers to come back for more. If that's the case, how many free Cobb cards would a smoker have to receive or be offered before they just told the sales clerk " no thanks , I've already got some"
The staining on the Goodwin Auctions card could actually be a water stain of somekind too , in my view. It is brownish, but it doesn't look like a stain made from a card laying on or against tobacco.necessarily.
You can uncover all the historical evidence you would like to share on Chewing of Tobacco, but I have an actual expample of a person who smoked cut plug ( my grandfather). I asked my dad again today if he though his dad ever chewed tobacco , and he laughed at the idea and said definitely " no". So despite the fact that ATC used the terms associated with "chewing" tobacco, I still believe it was smoked in cigarettes and pipes back then.
Maybe folks who bought TY Cobb thought it was crappy to chew and crappy to smoke. Maybe it wasn't the finest tobacco on Earth as they said it was and people just rejected it in the few months it was available.

[teetwoohsix]

I get the feeling that cut plug tobacco back in those times,was used for smoking and chewing,and was probably much different than what we know as "chewing tobacco" today.Dave's Grandfather is a great example of that.Some of the chew that's around today-I cannot see people smoking it!!If you've ever opened a pouch of Red Man Long Cut,I don't see how you could smoke it!!!Maybe dry it out,but I would think it would be unpleasant.Or the grainy Copenhagen?Smoking it?Yuck.

Clayton