Where is the second ledger of T cards?

[G1911]

Much new information has been found on the boxing sub-forum lately on the larger context of the ATC, ALC, the previously unknown-in-card-world Brett Lithography and the printing of T cards beyond boxing subjects (https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=309276), and some discussed in Pat's thread on the implications to T206.

One of the key pieces of evidence is this ledger/journal/possibly court-prep, that my poor self didn't bid on last year. It includes numerous N and T sets, but the auction listing at Lelands only shows a few select pages. I was hoping someone here might have been the winner, or know who is. Presumably whoever spent $8,000 on it is an active hobbyist . Whoever has possession of the material could do a great service to the research side of the hobby and to our understanding of what happened and how to create these sets, so I am hoping they will chime in and share images of the pages or be willing to discuss the book. Mr. Fullgraff appears to have been an instrumental link between the ATC and the lithographers.

There is no evidence baseball cards specifically are in this book, but it seems to me to be relevant to the context of the baseball T sets and how they were designed, printed, and issued and the business relationship between the companies responsible for this brief golden era of card production. If this is considered off topic, I apologize in advance! Feel free to delete

[G1911]

It's been a year, so I figure it's okay to bump. The odds that this item is in the possession of a board member or someone in their social network seems pretty high. The material in here would be of immense value to hobby research if it's owner would be willing to share its contents.

https://auction.lelands.com/bids/bidplace?itemid=97657

[Pat R]

Greg, when you originally posted this thread I was hoping the person that purchased the book or someone with more information would respond, there's some very useful information just in the few images Leland's posted.

In the write up they give credit to Fullgraff for coming up with the Turkey Red cigarette name but to me it looks it might have been Julius (I can't make out the last name) Bionter? that came up with the Turkey Red name.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

Greg, when you originally posted this thread I was hoping the person that purchased the book or someone with more information would respond, there's some very useful information just in the few images Leland's posted.

In the write up they give credit to Fullgraff for coming up with the Turkey Red cigarette name but to me it looks it might have been Julius (I can't make out the last name) Bionter? that came up with the Turkey Red name.

I think you are right and it is definitely "this brand [coined?] and named, January 30th, 1909 by Julius Bionter" by the prototype pack art. They are reading the purple stamp of Fullgraff's name that appears to be on most pages as the conclusion of the statement, instead of the statement being written around the stamp.

I have never been able to find anything on who this man was. We found a lot on Fullgraff, though there's a lot more we need, but I have never been able to find anything on this "Bionter" [I'm pretty sure that's the name, the second letter clearly has a "i" style dot] fellow. He doesn't appear in any of the ATC/AL/Brett documents I have found or in the old industry periodicals, that I can find. Unless I am reading his name wrong.

I would not have expected Turkey Red to be such a new brand.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

I think you are right and it is definitely "this brand [coined?] and named, January 30th, 1909 by Julius Bionter" by the prototype pack art. They are reading the purple stamp of Fullgraff's name that appears to be on most pages as the conclusion of the statement, instead of the statement being written around the stamp.

I have never been able to find anything on who this man was. We found a lot on Fullgraff, though there's a lot more we need, but I have never been able to find anything on this "Bionter" [I'm pretty sure that's the name, the second letter clearly has a "i" style dot] fellow. He doesn't appear in any of the ATC/AL/Brett documents I have found or in the old industry periodicals, that I can find. Unless I am reading his name wrong.

I would not have expected Turkey Red to be such a new brand.

Yeah I've never been able to find anything about Turkey Red cigarettes before 1909 but I did just find something very interesting by searching Julius Bion instead of Bionter.

img192.jpg

img193.jpg

There was a lot of information on Julius Bion that I'm going to go back and check on.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

Yeah I've never been able to find anything about Turkey Red cigarettes before 1909 but I did just find something very interesting by searching Julius Bion instead of Bionter.

Attachment 543709

Attachment 543710

There was a lot of information on Julius Bion that I'm going to go back and check on.

I never would have thought to shorten the name. 49 year gap, but a lithographer naming the brand would, while odd the surface, mesh with other things we found. It still surprises me just how much of American Tobacco’s business was apparently outsourced to lithographers in a loose network of firms who doubled as marketing and brand managers. Fullgraff at present seems to be not only the architect of many (possibly the T card renaissance as a whole) of these sets but the connection between these industries’ odd relationships. As a huge monopoly I would have expected them to have more control of their own product than they seem to have had.

[G1911]

Julius Bion & Co. appear to have done a lot of printing work for the United States Senate in the 1890's. This firm's name is repeated throughout their "Reports of the Public Printer". Here's the 1895 book covering 1893-1894, and in which this firm appears many times: https://www.google.com/books/edition...C?hl=en&gbpv=0. He appears in House reports from the 1880's, did some work for the Commerce, Agriculture and State departments that are all in similar resources on Google Books. This moves us a lot closer to 1909. Bion may not be this man in the ledger but he was probably in Fullgraff's network, who was in the business at this same time and his primary career seems to have been networking.

[G1911]

I suspect Julius Bien & Co. and Julius Bion & Co., lithographers with a specialty in producing maps, are the exact same thing, and this is just another example of inconsistent spelling.

Under the name Bien, instead of Bion, this firm is clearly active in 1909. Government printing office reports continue to refer to them in 1911 (https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover), and in 1914.

Evidently, Bien/Bion was bidding against American Lithography for government contracts in 1911, and losing. If this is the same man (I have a hard time believing there was a Julius Bion, Julius Bien, and Julius Bionter all in the same industry in management roles of some kind at the same time, can't say for sure but it seems very likely), he, like we have continually found with these lithographers, seems to both be competing with American Lithography and also working with them, and with other lithographers. We have Old Masters, Brett 100% doing some of the printing, Bien designing brands and marketing materials, American Lithography. The traditional claim that AL and the ATC were the solitary partners on the American Tobacco companies cards certainly does not seem to be the case.

[G1911]

Ha, I thought Bien sounded real familiar and went back to our previous thread here (https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...=309276&page=2).

Fullgraff was a clerk for Bien in the 1890's, from the same source I found that gave us Fullgraff's membership in the New York Athletic Club (which seems to relate to t218 and T220, many of those portrayed he surely knew personally) and the Larchmont.

You found a source of them being on Sixth Avenue in NY from between at least 1898-1915.

This is clearly all the same person/firm at this point.

[RCMcKenzie]

I recognize Julius Bien & Co from the Buchner Gold Coin series. I collect the set and was doing some research on the fly in this thread, see post 31.

www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=284915


Hopefully, the winner of the Leland's lot will chime in.

[G1911]

There's another connection, another N card involved individual coming up again in the T card project once the law changed.

Bien fought in the 1848 Springtime revolutions, was the first President of the National Lithographers Association, and was the leader of B'nai B'rith for over 3 decades according to Wikipedia. Died in December of 1909. Seems like the fellow lived quite a varied life, just like Fullgraff. His son donated a portrait to the Smithsonian in 1920, painted by George Da Maduro Peixotto.

Fullgraff's sporting interests, Bien's in birds and fish and maps, correlate strongly to the subjects chosen for the card projects, which appear to have been chosen by the lithographers and not the ATC from our 2021 research. Fullgraff's seem to be causation more than correlation.

Here's a modern reprint credited to his firm originally for the "American Eagle Tobacco Company": https://pixels.com/featured/american...uct=wood-print picturing Lily Langtry, who crops up in many places in advertising and public interest during this period and seems to be one of those women famous for being famous and being associated to numerous men. Still looking for other connections to tobacco.

[G1911]

Bien produced a map for the Interior Department showing the "regions producing the principal types of tobacco" as part of the tenth census, which would have been a few years before the Buchner cards. https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0

An 1898 edition of Profitable Advertising (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0) reports:

"The well-known lithographic house of Julius Bien & Co., New York, lately executed one million sheets for the American Tobacco Company. It is easier for the average person to state this fact than it is for him to comprehend the size of such an order, or the amount of labor involved in executing the same".

In 1912, Bien & co. patented a number of cigar brands I am not familiar with, listed on page 691 here; https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. They appear in other annual reports recording their rights to slogans and names for other non-tobacco products.

They appear to have had financial issues with creditors in 1914, that made its way to the New York Supreme Court. A single creditor claimed over $65,000 owed to him. Companies assets were assessed at about $39,000. Perhaps one of our lawyers may make better work of this than I. https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. It seems at this time Bien's son and namesake and a Franklin Bien, who may be another son, were running the show. Included in the records are plenty of itemized jobs and payments to Liggett & Myers, for cigar labels, "dancing inserts" and more. Some single tobacco jobs netted as much as $22,500, which is a lot of money for a print job in 1914. It is a lengthy read, and I have not read the entire text yet.

It seems clear and evident this firm had deep relationships in the tobacco industry and decades of partnering with the leading tobacco firms.

Fullgraff worked directly for American Lithography, Brett, Bien, and American Tobacco at different points in the 1890's-1910's. He seems to have continued to do business with all of them before and after his direct employments, a cross-industry project manager and networker for whom what we might now call conflicts of interest seem to have been his desirable asset.

[G1911]

And, I found another detail of Frank G. Fullgraff's life I did not find in the original deep dive, his marriage record. He wed an Anna L. Simpkins on September 10, 1874. It was recorded in the New York Herald, and transcribed into this book: https://www.google.com/books/edition...C?hl=en&gbpv=0. Frank G. was born in 1851.

An Anna Fullgraff petitioned the Parks Department in 1884 to improve some city streets (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0).

Anna Fullgraff left or sold to Clara Simpkins 2 buildings (5 and 3 story tenement buildings) on Downing Street in 1900. Fullgraff clearly was financially successful before his very lucrative contract at Brett Lithography. https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0. Frank and Anna appear to have themselves lived on West 23rd Street.

Fullgraff was a swimmer, baseball player (Grammarcy), rifle champion, rower, billiardist and more in the sporting world. Pat found a record of him being said rifle champion, but no more was found. I found a record (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=1), from the NRA competition:

"At the autumn meting of the National Rifle Association 1876, the following remarkable score was made at 200 yards, off-hand, with a military rifle. Frank G Fullgraff 5, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 -- 34 out of 35." Truly impressive marksmanship with a trapdoor.


These particular trail may never tie back into the card sets, but Fullgraff's life has often turned out to us to connect back to a card topic later and given new insight, and the board did ask for more research posts today.

[G1911]

I've found an amusing baseball anecdote while digging into Fullgraff and the sports world, and another source that Fullgraff was a member of the Larchmont, who appear in T59 as one of the obscure associations in the fourth series. Fullgraff may or may not have put this set together. Fullgraff played in a "water baseball game" between a club of married men against a team of single men. This "was simply a lark frolic in the water" and Fullgraff "in a woman's yachting costume, fell into the water with a scream, shrill as a locomotives shriek, and created a momentary scare among the uninitiated." This event seems to have been the highlight of the water baseball game, whose score is not given. https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0


I cannot see the entirety of this book or the full section (https://www.google.com/books/edition...aff%20baseball), but we learn that "( By Frank G. Fullgraff of Brooklyn , a Club veteran who served as a member of the 22nd Regiment of the New York National ... He has given up his first love — baseball — but he still retains his love for athletics , as his residence ..."

Another source (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0) mentioning the 1876 NRA event where Fullgraff won a marksmanship contest confirms him as a member of the 22nd regiment. In the firearms world, the 22nd New York regiment of this time was considered skilled in sport shooting and had deep ties to the fledgling NRA. Some of their shooting rules and methods were adopted as NRA standard for broader competition, when the NRA was an NY club primarily teaching and preaching good marksmanship.

His rank in the 22nd appears to have been a private (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0)

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

I suspect Julius Bien & Co. and Julius Bion & Co., lithographers with a specialty in producing maps, are the exact same thing, and this is just another example of inconsistent spelling.

Under the name Bien, instead of Bion, this firm is clearly active in 1909. Government printing office reports continue to refer to them in 1911 (https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover), and in 1914.

Evidently, Bien/Bion was bidding against American Lithography for government contracts in 1911, and losing. If this is the same man (I have a hard time believing there was a Julius Bion, Julius Bien, and Julius Bionter all in the same industry in management roles of some kind at the same time, can't say for sure but it seems very likely), he, like we have continually found with these lithographers, seems to both be competing with American Lithography and also working with them, and with other lithographers. We have Old Masters, Brett 100% doing some of the printing, Bien designing brands and marketing materials, American Lithography. The traditional claim that AL and the ATC were the solitary partners on the American Tobacco companies cards certainly does not seem to be the case.

Yes, it didn't dawn on me when I posted the clips but after I went back to look at some of the additional information last night I came to the same conclusion as you.

[toppcat]

Fascinating!

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

Bien produced a map for the Interior Department showing the "regions producing the principal types of tobacco" as part of the tenth census, which would have been a few years before the Buchner cards. https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0

An 1898 edition of Profitable Advertising (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0) reports:

"The well-known lithographic house of Julius Bien & Co., New York, lately executed one million sheets for the American Tobacco Company. It is easier for the average person to state this fact than it is for him to comprehend the size of such an order, or the amount of labor involved in executing the same".

In 1912, Bien & co. patented a number of cigar brands I am not familiar with, listed on page 691 here; https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. They appear in other annual reports recording their rights to slogans and names for other non-tobacco products.

They appear to have had financial issues with creditors in 1914, that made its way to the New York Supreme Court. A single creditor claimed over $65,000 owed to him. Companies assets were assessed at about $39,000. Perhaps one of our lawyers may make better work of this than I. https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. It seems at this time Bien's son and namesake and a Franklin Bien, who may be another son, were running the show. Included in the records are plenty of itemized jobs and payments to Liggett & Myers, for cigar labels, "dancing inserts" and more. Some single tobacco jobs netted as much as $22,500, which is a lot of money for a print job in 1914. It is a lengthy read, and I have not read the entire text yet.

It seems clear and evident this firm had deep relationships in the tobacco industry and decades of partnering with the leading tobacco firms.

Fullgraff worked directly for American Lithography, Brett, Bien, and American Tobacco at different points in the 1890's-1910's. He seems to have continued to do business with all of them before and after his direct employments, a cross-industry project manager and networker for whom what we might now call conflicts of interest seem to have been his desirable asset.

I think a lot of people in the hobby don't realize how big the tobacco card printings were at the time and I'm not talking about just T206's, that's one of the things we have learned from these ledgers/albums. I also think there is a misconception about some of the changes that were made in these sets, in general there are far more changes that could have been made that weren't than changes that were made. I think the ones that were made were because they were done at an opportune time like a change over to another series or another facility. I don't believe they would stop in the middle of these huge projects to make a change because a player was on a different team or something similar.

Hopefully we can eventually get more information on the other pages that were in this register book.

A friend has an old album that he sent me to look through and the colors on the cards are amazing unfortunately my photography skills are not.

Here are a few of the pages if I remember there were 50-60 pages left in the album when he got it but most of the baseball and other sports cards were removed before he got it.

[IMG][/IMG]


[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[G1911]

Following up on the Turkey Red's, they may not have been actually issued to the public until very early 1910 or late 1909. From the January 5, 1910 edition of the United States Tobacco Journal, there will be "much work" in introducing the brand, unclear if this is literally introducing it or if it more refers to getting it to catch on. It is paired with Fez, Murad and Trophy cigarettes in the ATC's departmental territories. Fez is one of the valid brands for coupons for T3, and the T6 cabinets from Murad are a very similar idea. Trophy was another Turning brand and issued T57. There are a lot of connections between which brands were paired with which other brands in the ATC's departments and the card sets, but I don't believe most of it has been posted before. Apologies if it has and I missed it.

[G1911]

3 days later, in the January 8 edition, there is further confirmation of a January 1910 launch of Turkey Red. The price was a bit higher than other brands to retailers.

Same article has some interesting data on the 1st district Ohio output, over 43 million pounds of tobacco in 1909 alone from it (factory 6 was there).

[G1911]

The Canadian Patent Office Record tells us that Turkey Red and its advertising style was registered by Imperial Tobacco April 2, 1910. Piedmont was registered the same time. Some of these American baseball issues may have been issued north of the border for some period. Not clear there is much evidence here.

[G1911]

Not offered particularly cheap, the price was increased very quickly. It's up to $7.50 per thousand (and sold 10 for 10 cents to consumers, i.e.; 25% of the money to the store, 75% to the ATC) by early February.

Also by February, it is being labelled as a S. Anagyros brand, which seems to be one of the front companies used to duck regulators. Turkey Red part is the fifth paragraph on this page.

The Fez brand was launched at a similar time and appears in many notices alongside Turkey Red (the primary issuer of T79 and known to the non-sports collectors). Other sources suggest it was positioned as a 'healthy' brand for smoking. Turkish blends contained suluk which contained opium (or so I read) and was thought to cause some throat irritation in smokers. Fez removed the suluk, (T.P.'s Weekly; November 4, 1910 issue) with Turkey Red apparently a brand still containing suluk alongside the older ATC Turkish brands. Something tells me Fez smokers still had health problems.

[G1911]

By March 26, the price seems to remain high but stores ordering are given 8 free packs of Helmar and Turkish Trophies, upping their percentage of the take a little bit if they sold out.

These early packs had coupons, and at least some T37's. T72 came to replace T37 and was issued alongside it. T48 was the final pack inserted Turkey Red cards in late 1910. After that it seems to have been a coupon only affair. I'm not clear how early coupons used for the cabinet cards may have been issued; they may have pre-dated the printing of the premiums they could be redeemed for by a bit.

[G1911]

The April 9th edition notes that Turkey Red matches are being sent out by the "Metropolitan Tobacco Co." to "boost the cigarette of this name". Originally it is pretty openly an ATC brand, but is now on it's second front company after just 4 months. No wonder the 1909-1911 federal report on the monopoly is over a thousand pages.

[G1911]

Just a couple weeks later in the April 26th edition, it's back to being to publicly labelled as a product from Anargyros, and confirmed to be the same price to the public as originally.

[G1911]

In May there is effectively a price cut, as the 2% discount rate is upped to 10%, giving a bit more margin to the jobbers. Anargyros and the ATC are separated but not very carefully and it was surely little secret to those in the industry that these are the same firm.

Of another note, Drum here doesn't seem to be referred to as a regional, appearing alongside major brands in a national (or at least east coast) circular from the monopoly.

[G1911]

The coupons for the T3 and T9 cabinet cards was popular by the May 14, 1910 issue. They are referenced directly in a very brief notice. "Dealers report a swelling demand" as a result of the picture promotion. Interesting that the pugilists are not mentioned.

[G1911]

By mid year, S. Anaryros is clearly labelled as an ATC firm. By October, Turkey Red is being used to sell less popular brands by bundling in others at a reduced rate if Turkey Red is bought. These are the October 8 and October 15th editions. No further mention has been made of the cabinet cards.

Promotion was discontinued December 10, 1910.

[G1911]

I found a mention in the November 20, 1909 edition, with the new "brilliant cigarette packages" on display at a stand in New York. Not clear this product is generally available yet.

[G1911]

While piecing together what I could find on early Turkey Red, I found some other items of baseball note that might be of interest to other researchers.

1 is this notice in the March 19, 1910 edition on Hal Chase and R.T. Carroll ""stars" of the New York American Baseball club" were doing sales work for "Ismid Cigarette Co.". R.T. Carroll was certainly not a Highlander star; he pitched 5 innings in 1909 and that was his entire MLB career. Interesting to see Chase in such reference with another firm, as T206 was in full swing and he got more cards than anyone in it.

[G1911]

I am not really a deep follower of the T204's, but this is from the July 23, 1910 issue with a July 20, 1910 Boston MA byline. This card issue is generally prescribed as a 1909 release. I don't recall this redemption program.

[G1911]

The November 12, 1910 issue placed Jimmy Sheckard as a competitor to the ATC while appearing in their card sets.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by G1911

I am not really a deep follower of the T204's, but this is from the July 23, 1910 issue with a July 20, 1910 Boston MA byline. This card issue is generally prescribed as a 1909 release. I don't recall this redemption program.

There is little other information on Mentor and Ramly. The only other thing I could find was an employee notice, of a Khedivial (part of the monopoly, but appears to me to have been oft position as independent) worker taking a job with Mentor's "Ramleh" later in 1910. Misspellings of brands is fairly common, for example Lenox is at least once called "Lexon".

[G1911]

And from a February 3, 1909 article we get the leadership of that company at the time. I don't know if this is useful to T204 collectors or if anyone is really digging into the history of this set, but it seems reasonable it would be.

[G1911]

I also found more evidence that Drum was not regional (off memory it's St. Louis it was said to be local too?). Here it is in the August 27, 1910 issue highlighted as being available in large packs in Brooklyn.

[Pat R]

Greg, as we have discussed before it gets really complicated because the ATL and ALC were associated with or owned so many companies it's hard to keep track of all of them.

I have to go back and find some of the clippings but I'm pretty sure the John Bollman Co. purchased the S. Arnargyros Co. The Bollman Co. created the Obak cigarette brand and I found where the Bollman Co. was actually owned by the American Tobacco Co. There was also another Arnargyros involved in cigarette making that resulted in a lawsuit that went on for quite a length of time.

January 11 1908
[IMG][/IMG]

January 14 1908
[IMG][/IMG]

February 2 1909
[IMG][/IMG]

I also found where Mecca cigarettes another ATC brand were produced by the Imperial Tobacco Co.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

The coupons for the T3 and T9 cabinet cards was popular by the May 14, 1910 issue. They are referenced directly in a very brief notice. "Dealers report a swelling demand" as a result of the picture promotion. Interesting that the pugilists are not mentioned.

This lines up with the information in the 1st ledger book and also shows why when I posted about the ledger I pointed out that you have to break down all the information on each page.

They first started packing and shipping the coupons for the T cards in the beginning of March 1910 and those coupons state that the Baseball pictures will be ready to ship on April 1st and the athletes will be ready to ship on May 1st 1910.

[IMG][/IMG]

Two pages in the 1st Ledger state that they started packing and shipping the T cards on April 26 1910

This one is 75% Hudson-Fulton and 25% Baseball
[IMG][/IMG]

This 2nd page also states the packing and shipping on April 26 1910 and it also states the packing and shipping of one ball player and one prize fighter on June 16 1910 for the state of Ohio only.
[IMG][/IMG]

I not sure why they only mention the pugilists for the state of Ohio instructions but the coupon says Baseball and Athlete picture which I assume is the T9's.

[sb1]

Originally Posted by G1911

I am not really a deep follower of the T204's, but this is from the July 23, 1910 issue with a July 20, 1910 Boston MA byline. This card issue is generally prescribed as a 1909 release. I don't recall this redemption program.

This offer was for the large and very rare team composite premiums, not the cards which were first offered in 1909 with ads in local newspapers and Red Sox scorecards.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

Greg, as we have discussed before it gets really complicated because the ATL and ALC were associated with or owned so many companies it's hard to keep track of all of them.

I have to go back and find some of the clippings but I'm pretty sure the John Bollman Co. purchased the S. Arnargyros Co. The Bollman Co. created the Obak cigarette brand and I found where the Bollman Co. was actually owned by the American Tobacco Co. There was also another Arnargyros involved in cigarette making that resulted in a lawsuit that went on for quite a length of time.

I also found where Mecca cigarettes another ATC brand were produced by the Imperial Tobacco Co.

There seems to have been a lot of these ‘fraud’ brands like the second Anargyros, piggy backing off established ATC brands and sub firms. The rejected registrations have a lot of what seem to be these, like “Count Tolstoi”. The real Anargyros and Metropolitan seem to flip flop between being front holding firms and just openly being subsidiary operators of the ATC. There’s so much inconsistency in how the ATC is operating in 1910.

Mecca in Canada is of special interest to me. The Adless version of Mecca’s T218 is labelled a Canadian issue (C52) and many of the cards have come from Canada and the American northeast, but I’ve also got an original batch from a Virginia provenance and I am not yet entirely sold on the general narrative that any T card with a card number in place of advertising is an Imperial Tobacco product. I didn’t come across anything that Turkey Red or Piedmont were actually issued in Canada, the registrations don’t mean they were actually sold there. Worthy of deeper digging

In your dives into Obak, do you have anything in your notes on Pet and Kopec? The west coast brands that released the T224/T229 set closely related to T212. Obak appears a lot in the primary material I’ve been through and seems to have been popular but these brands rarely earn mention. I would assume they were also run by the same people.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

This lines up with the information in the 1st ledger book and also shows why when I posted about the ledger I pointed out that you have to break down all the information on each page.

They first started packing and shipping the coupons for the T cards in the beginning of March 1910 and those coupons state that the Baseball pictures will be ready to ship on April 1st and the athletes will be ready to ship on May 1st 1910.


Two pages in the 1st Ledger state that they started packing and shipping the T cards on April 26 1910

This one is 75% Hudson-Fulton and 25% Baseball

This 2nd page also states the packing and shipping on April 26 1910 and it also states the packing and shipping of one ball player and one prize fighter on June 16 1910 for the state of Ohio only.

I not sure why they only mention the pugilists for the state of Ohio instructions but the coupon says Baseball and Athlete picture which I assume is the T9's.

I think we have further evidence of wave printing and issuing here. 1-76 is a checklisted and planned series (with 76 being a last minute addition after the baseball subjects began printing but before the boxers), but it’s issued as essentially two parts. We have evidence for this in T218 series 3, T220, and then I think less obviously but still present T42 and others, where only 25 of 50 subjects were in production at a time. I suspect that if a retailer got 1,000 packs delivered, they wouldn’t have an entire series for a lot of sets, just half or part of one repeated over and over. This makes sense with the heavy duplication on sheets and it is tough to explain some of the primary evidence any other way, like the T218-3 ledger pages.

When it comes to Turkey Red, I don’t know what one baseball player and one prize fighter really mean. The coupon for the T3/T9 set is the same for both, for the “baseball and athlete picture” department. No boxing card or silk or picture was ever inserted in Turkey Red smokes directly.

I suspect the Ohio reference is to a regionalism that we have found little to document. The ATC has brand divisions but it also has geography divisions. If my memory is correct we’ve talked about articles implying Pennsylvania having different distribution before. There were local laws that may have impeded card releases after the federal prohibition on tobacco cards ended. There may be some of that regionalism reflected in T226 distribution. We are at least advancing from “unknown unknowns” to “known unknowns”

[G1911]

Originally Posted by sb1

This offer was for the large and very rare team composite premiums, not the cards which were first offered in 1909 with ads in local newspapers and Red Sox scorecards.

Thank you! I have a TTT and blank back to serve as types in my collection but I don’t know Ramly and Mentor well at all.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

There seems to have been a lot of these ‘fraud’ brands like the second Anargyros, piggy backing off established ATC brands and sub firms. The rejected registrations have a lot of what seem to be these, like “Count Tolstoi”. The real Anargyros and Metropolitan seem to flip flop between being front holding firms and just openly being subsidiary operators of the ATC. There’s so much inconsistency in how the ATC is operating in 1910.

Mecca in Canada is of special interest to me. The Adless version of Mecca’s T218 is labelled a Canadian issue (C52) and many of the cards have come from Canada and the American northeast, but I’ve also got an original batch from a Virginia provenance and I am not yet entirely sold on the general narrative that any T card with a card number in place of advertising is an Imperial Tobacco product. I didn’t come across anything that Turkey Red or Piedmont were actually issued in Canada, the registrations don’t mean they were actually sold there. Worthy of deeper digging

In your dives into Obak, do you have anything in your notes on Pet and Kopec? The west coast brands that released the T224/T229 set closely related to T212. Obak appears a lot in the primary material I’ve been through and seems to have been popular but these brands rarely earn mention. I would assume they were also run by the same people.

I haven't found anything at all on Kopec but I did find a little bit about Pets Cigarettes here's an ad for them and it's the other Anagyros that the lawsuit was brought against.
February 12 1910 Oakland Tribune
[IMG][/IMG]

I'm positive I saw something on the Imperial Tobacco company producing Mecca Cigarettes but I wasn't able to locate it again yet. It was just a couple of days ago when I was researching something else. I should have saved it but they recently changed things, I used to be able to clip and save them without interrupting what I'm researching but now I have to print it out and scan it.

[Pat R]

Some more info on the Pets Cigarettes. N. Anargyros must have been successful in their appeal for awhile based on the newspaper dates of the different clips

February 2 1909
[IMG][/IMG]

In this clipping seeking investors from March 14 1911 Pets Cigarettes was being manufactured by The Oakland Tobacco Co.
[IMG][/IMG]

[Pat R]

It seems like some of the cigarette companies spent as much time in court as they did making cigarettes. Here's another case that involved Anargyros, Osias Maller, and Mentor the makers of Ramly Cigarettes.

August 2 1907
[IMG][/IMG]

They changed the name from Ramleh to Helmar "Ramleh spelled backwards" in April 1908

April 15 1908
[IMG][/IMG]

[teza11]

Greg,

Great research. Never mind my question. I figured it out.

Jeff

[sb1]

The Mentor Co.(Ramly, TTT and other cigarettes) led by Telemachus Thomas Timayenis, was involved in myriad of lawsuits between other cigarette manufacturers and the ATC as well. There are dozens of newspaper articles of the day documenting his feuds with them. Timayenis seemed to go out of his way to create issues for his various endeavors and was never shy to seek litigation or run from it.

[1880nonsports]

I remember seeing one of the ledgers at a national - a treasure for anyone interested in the history of production obviously.... GREAT thread - wishing I was on my way IN instead of mostly OUT.

[G1911]

It's been 11 months, which feels close enough to 12 for me to do my annual bump and see if anyone new sees and can point the way to this valuable book. I don't want to pester its owner to buy it, merely see the pages for the research wing of the hobby (which sure can't hurt its value!).

I've put together all my notes and documents to compile a book-length work on the E and T boxing cards. With my luck, I know this volume will finally surface for viewing and to help resolve our remaining mysteries and unknowns as soon as I call it finished and push it out there for dissemination...

[doug.goodman]

I have pretty close to zero interest in T cards, but this is a fascinating thread.

Good luck with your quest.

Doug