T5 and the ATC
I am not a collector, authority, or researcher of this particular set, but in the course of my boxing work I've come across some notes about Pinkerton I made from some contemporary records of a court appearance by ATC executive Percival Hill. Pinkerton was founded in 1887, and independent initially before it sold most of its stock to the ATC, which was apparently at some point before 1904. This acquisition was done in secret. They were publicly identified as a part of the Trust only in July of 1907 when the New York State government came after the ATC for trust violations and named a number of their shadow subsidiaries amongst a series of demands for executives to testify. The July 20th 1907 United States Tobacco Journal reports explicitly that Pinkerton being part of the ATC was unknown before this: "It was not known throughout the trade of that concern being a part of the Trust." Though they do proceed to humble brag that they had "intimated" Pinkerton was "several months ago".
In the breakup, Pinkerton was assigned to Liggett & Myers (i.e., they remained a part of the trust until the end). They actually still exist today as the makers of Red Man, and their website openly acknowledges they were once part of the monopoly, which was a secret at the time.
I thought this interesting because I never see T5 discussed alongside the other ATC and immediate breakup sets of 1909-1912. As far as I can recall off the top this set has the only other Wagner and Plank cards from the ATC realm. Seems like the Pinkerton's would possibly have some relevance to the situations with their contract and be of interest to the baseball guys, if T5 is a 1911 issue. Is the printer of T5 known?
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10-28-2023, 03:04 PM
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