Unopened packs and aging to cards; or, the dangers of not smoking

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Posted By: Max Weder

I have taken the liberty of re-posting Jon Canfield's Obak pack, with the card that was inside.



My question is whether the effects of the tobacco and the cigarette paper from an unopened pack will by the passage of all this time have naturally aged any card inside, so the chance of pulling a mint card is eliminated. Can a tobacco pack from that era be sufficiently sealed so that oxygen can't mix? Anyone know? (I stopped smoking at the age of 11, so my opinion on the effects of tobacco is not worth much...)

Max

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Posted By: hankron

In my experience, the tobacco dries to a crisp and most harm by the tobacco would come in the inital year or so. Interestingly, it can still smell strongly of tobacco.

I once had a case of Sweet Caporals and made a promise that I would smoke one of the cigarettes (I don't smoke). Promise or no promise, when I looked at the little cigarette in my hand there was no way I was going to smoke it.

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Posted By: Marc S.

BMW Cards sold an N172 card that was graded out as GEM MINT and identified as having been pulled from the pack.

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MW might be able to shed some additional light on the background of the pack, etc.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Although there is considerable difference between the condition of the Lewis and Alcott cards, since both cards were removed from their undamaged manufacturers original containers, one could argue that both cards are in mint (uncirculated) condition.

Of course then, it follows that cards which are off center, miscut, containing print spots and poorly focused are also in mint condition, if they have not been handled nor exposed to light.

I guess it depends on what your definition of "is" is.

Gil

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Posted By: runscott

Jay every now and then tells a story that makes my hands sweat - he opened a load of packs containing t205's. Story is definitely worth repeating.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

That N172 Alcott that was pulled from a pack by Al Rosen was once owned by me so I feel qualified to comment on it. The card was stained on the back from the tobacco. The card was graded by an early SGC group and the grade would no longer be even close to repeatable today. I once talked to Derek Grady about it and he could only shake his head.

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

As you can see from the scan, the Lewis is quite stained. I did, however, see a man open a Hassan pack once. The card from inside was severely (sp?) miscut, but overall, very little staining. I think some might have to do with the type of tobacco used as well as the wrapping on the cigarettes. Obviously, an unopened Polar Bear, where the cards were in direct contact, would be much worse than a cigarette pack.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Being able to help open 40+ packs with t-205s in them is probably the highlight of my hobby life. I don't recall any of the cards being stained. If they had any, it wasn't noticable. It also wasn't uncommon for the cards to come out of the pack with a few chips on the boarders. Most of the cards were not center real well. 30/70 side to side seemed to be common. Top to bottom was fine. don't really remember a tobacco smell, but then again, I have bad sinuses and can't smell much.

Jay

I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Wierd, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff. And I want in.

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Posted By: Mark Macrae

Another factor is how & where the pack was stored over the years. If the product is exposed to dampness, humidity or other environmental factors this will have an impact on what is contained inside the package. As an experiment, buy a box of Marlboro cigarettes today. Break the seal and insert a near mint, but relatively inexpensive card (1970 Topps common). Close the box and submerge the entire box in water. Let it stay submerged in water for about 2 hours. Remove the soggy container, pat it dry & place it in the oven at about 140 degrees for 4-5 hours. Remove the package from the oven & you'll see what 50 years of aging in a damp basement can do to paper...As a note I have pulled lightly stained, sharp cornered cards from these early packs. Jon's pack looks like it was exposed to a light / moderate dampness provoking the staining, not only on the card, but the box as well.

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Posted By: MW

Jay,

Are you sure about the staining on the reverse side of the Alcott? I seem to recall some moderate toning from the paper being aged, but I don't remember any definitive staining. Also, besides the centering, it's still one of the sharpest N172s I've seen (the corners were pristine). I don't see why Derek Grady would have such disgust.

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Posted By: Julie

THE HELL WITH YOUR LUNGS; THINK OF YOUR CARDS!

This M101-4 Ruth and Fan Craze Duffy were unblemished when I bought them. I quit smoking two years and two months ago. Between the time I bought the cards and the time I quit smoking, this is what happened to them...


Since I have kept my cards in Mylar and archival sheets for about 15 years, these were the only two affected--that's PLENTY!

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Posted By: runscott

...that isn't cockroach ****? Quite serioiusly, insects seem to make a real mess of paper items - seems odd that cigarette smoke could work its way through mylar sheets to form distinct patterns on cards, but I realize that weird things happen.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

no cucurachas in my room!

Ask Mark Macrae: Cigarettes, or any kind of smoke, is DEATH to cards...people who buy a lot of big collections know.

Seriously...

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Posted By: Darren J. Duet

Take this from a physician, the longer ANYTHING is exposed to tobacco the worse off it is.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I once won an auction for a big lot of exhibits from the 1920s. When they arrived and I opened the box, the stench was so strong that it gave me an allergy attack. I quickly boxed them back up in plenty of plastic and returned the items. To me, the stink of second hand smoke in items like cards is a combo rotting cabbage and really rank BO. Plus a really bad Mexican food and beer crap. The sort of stuff that makes stink jump up and say "damn, that stinks."

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Posted By: Max Weder

I would add that the only things better off with exposure to tobacco would seem to be lawyers, given the recent spate of tobacco litigation and prosecution.

Max "I stick to Tax" Weder

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Posted By: Rhett

Jay, not trying to be mean or anything but why the heck did you open 40 packs containing T205's? Are you crazy? Once you realized there were T205's in the packs didn't you realize you could have sold the packs for far more than just another loose T205? That has to be one of the most insane things I have ever heard.
-Rhett

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Posted By: Scott M

I've mentioned this little story to other board members in the past but I just had to tag along with Daves comment near the top of the thread about how the tobacco smell can linger on cards which have been in close proximity with tobacco over a period of years.

A fair portion of my collection was obtained in the early 70s with my father. We were lucky enough to obtain a hoard of T205s and T206s which had been stored in several original Sweet Cap and Piedmont boxes for at least a decade or two if not more.

The boxes themselves were already opened and void of the cigarettes but the smell of tobacco was strong on our cards for years afterwards.

Being our first experience with tobacco cards, my father could often be found afterwards at early Willow Grove, PA card shows sniffing a dealers cards for authenticity

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Posted By: jay behrens

Rhett, the choice wasn't mine. I was merely lucky enough to allowed to open some of the packs. If they were mine, they would have been opened anyway. I ahve no self control around unopned material. Plus, this occured back in 1982.

Jay

I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Wierd, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff. And I want in.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

I've purchased cards from ebay and I know that the sellers must have been chain smokers because that smell of stale tobacco reeked from the cards. Yup, they were T-cards.