T card era cigarette packs

[jerrys]

http://home.roadrunner.com/~jspillman/packs.htm

This article, which is a copy of my original submission to SCD in 2005, has been on my web site since that time. With the exception of the N175 I believe what I wrote then is still correct. If anyone can advance any input to it I would appreciate it.

[rdwyer]

Nice read. Thanks for contributing.

[canjond]

Jerry - long time no see. Hope all is well. I certainly think you are correct that the N175 pack shown is not correct. By my last count, I knew of 2 that existed, and both date to pre-1883. The style was dropped after that and the more "plain" style was used.

Prior to tracking down the 2 original ones, I had thought the ornate style may have been used for distribution, too.

[jerrys]

Jon, I didn’t see you at the October Hempstead Show.

I’ve never seen any representation of a Four Base Hits pack but I was able to get a somewhat distorted and blurry image of one side of a Buchner pack by cropping and magnifing a scan of a Buchner sign. The pack pictures the reverse of four overlapping US Gold Coins; a twenty, a ten, a five and a two and a half. It reads Gold Coin Chewing Tobacco in gold letters with a black background.

[bijoem]

1910 Polar Bear tobacco.

I opened this up about 20 years ago (I think it was that long ago) - hoping to find a T206 card. No card. But the tobacco is still there.

[canjond]

Beautiful PB packl. I'm pretty sure that red overprint on the tax stamp probably dates the pack to the 1920s though. I can't see the date with the wrapping around it, but its a guess.

[bijoem]

wow Jon - you really know your stuff!

I never noticed a date on the red stamp (I was going by the printed "1910" on the label).

Now that you mentioned 1920s.....

The last line of the stamp is cut off....
but it does look like a date -
and it sure does look like the top of the numbers "1921"
Probably "Feb" also.